Comments on: California to embrace American Diploma Project

By: Jack's Porch

Jack's Porch — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 10:30:41 +0000

So the farmer in Iowa needs the same education as the techie in Sun Valley?

I guess the politicians will still get what they want. Hey you in Montana, go to Alabama to work and shut up about it. Hey California person, how’s Kansas sound (it doesn’t matter you’re going)?

Outrageous? Don’t think so. It’s already been proposed under Nationalized health care. Individuals will be told what course of study they’ll partake (Want to be a Neuro-surgeon, too bad family practice is for you). And that includes where you’ll practice.

And this country will descend further into mediocrity and despair as individuals with unique talents will be smothered and forced away from their gifts into areas not suited to their persons.

By: Dana

Dana — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:30:06 +0000

We actually already have national standards…even in subjects like foreign language. I had to learn them in college. We are heading toward a national curriculum via the limited options that Reading First allows to receive grants.

I don’t mind its existence, and I suppose it can provide some guidance, the same as when I print of a state assessment and give it to my daughter. But I am wholly against any thing like that being mandated.

By: Shawna

Shawna — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:27:33 +0000

I have always liked the idea of a national standard/curricula, but I have never interpreted that to mean that each state, each county or even each district could not have its own unique curricula that uses the national standard as a sort of skeleton to build upon.

I always just thought of it as giving each of us a standard, basic foundation… and our schooling of choice would fill in the rest: a public school, a charter school affiliated with a district, a private school, a religious school, home schooling, unschooling. etc.

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:29:48 +0000

Renae, it is a comforting thought, isn’t it? The state is attempting through policy changes and law to replicate what naturally occurs in the home. : )

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:27:51 +0000

Julie, you are absolutely right. I believe that schools should have high expectations for their students and staff. Everything I have ever read supports that high expectations lead to better results in any measurement of student learning.

But high expectations means something different for every child.

By: Renae

Renae — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:29:14 +0000

Sometimes I feel like I am not being an effective teacher, so I appreciate the reminder that the “seamless integration of expectations and curricula” in our homeschool is positive. I know exactly what my children have studied, and we build on that year after year.

By: Life On The Planet

Life On The Planet — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:21:50 +0000

Sunniemom - LOL! Ha! I’ve washed those shorts, my friend, and no way is my handed going anywhere near them.

Julie - I love the third brain analogy.

By: Julie@Shanan Trail

Julie@Shanan Trail — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:06:44 +0000

Every time someone brings up the idea of an “educational pipeline” or conveyor belt, I can’t help but see flashes of the movie Spy Kids. The evil genius has stolen the third brain, reproduced it… there is a seemingly endless line of robot kids on a belt, their skull is popped open and their brain is implanted.

Uh, that only works for robot kids. Real kids learn in different ways. The fallacy of this kind of thinking is that kids learn the same, just at different speeds. Quantitative differences in learning are “fixed” by slowing down the conveyor belt. Well, some kids have qualitative difference in the way they learn.

The problem with national standards, or even local standards, is that there is never any attempt to individualize them… which homeschooling allows.

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:15:21 +0000

Yep, that’s how it is done, Sunniemom!

Summer, I agree. That is the direction this is all heading.

By: Summer

Summer — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:55:00 +0000

It sounds nice, but I worry that it really is too close to becoming a national curriculum. Maybe I’m just cynical.