The federal Race to the Top program includes a plan to hire and fire principals and teachers on the basis of the students’ assessment scores. This has already begun to cause problems…
Common Core and More — Federal and National Standards and Policies
Article Ten of the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
This means that the federal government is not supposed to interfere in the educational affairs of any state. Yet since 1965, the federal government has heaped educational mandate upon mandate on the states through the strings attached to federal funding. The creation of the Department of Education in 1979 has not improved education but has eroded local control.
Scholastic Aptitude Test scores peaked in the mid 1960s and have declined ever since 1965, coincidentally when federal aid to local schools first started. We cannot infer causality, but it is clear federal aid did not help.
Public schools function best when they are truly run locally.
In Communist China, the government keeps data files on each of the ordinary citizens. Unfortunately, that system is well underway to being created here in the USA too.
“If we accomplish one thing in the coming years it should be to eliminate the extreme variation in standards across America,” stated Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Does this mean uniform mediocrity?
Not another federal education program! The schools will need to jump through more hoops, but will the student actually learn more?
Common Core Standards or any nationally mandated, one-size-fits-all-states standards are a mistake for the country. Each state is to manage its own educational affairs according to the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The Common Core standards are content-free and similar to the old WASL standards. What next? A national WASL test?
Whether or not to use the state assessment as a graduation requirement is a state decision. It is not required by the federal No Child Left Behind law.