My takeaway: - no standards can work, because - all standards rely on implementation. That's a bit disingenuous, but also substantially correct. People game

My takeaway: - no standards can work, because - all standards rely on implementation. That's a bit disingenuous, but also substantially correct. People game the system in many ways in response to "standards" (really just requirements/rules). There's also a sad problem that when minimums are implemented, many people race to the minimum instead of continuing to perform at a higher level, because the minimums are what are written down. Students try to game my assignments too. I try to do two things: make them "ungameable" or make them so that trying to game them actually gets the student to do the thing that I think is useful in the first place. But I have to have the freedom to say, "No, this is a crappy attempt. You can do better. Go redo this and improve in the following ways," rather than following a course schedule mandated by the school board. We don't trust teachers to have professional judgement in the US, so we take away their ability to think. "So scripted even a janitor could teach it!" http://www.brightlightsmallcity.com/reading-horizons-a-curriculum-even-a-janitor-could-teach/ http://www.brightlightsmallcity.com/reading-horizons-a-curri...