> "Should a student in New York learn different stuff than a student in Ohio?" As someone who grew up in Miami, I can say that readings about "the colors of fa

> "Should a student in New York learn different stuff than a student in Ohio?" As someone who grew up in Miami, I can say that readings about "the colors of fall" and "snow" made little sense. It wasn't until college that I saw what people mean by "autumn colors". I went up north for graduate school, and commented that when I saw snow out of the corner of my eye my first thought was that the sand had blown in and I needed to sweep it away. My housemates looked at me funny - "sand is yellow." We of course learned about hurricane safety, and how sinkholes form. We also read local authors, like Zora Neale Hurston. In part because doing so also helps understand the history and culture of where we live. How does a New Mexican understand state politics without knowing something about the 400+ years of interactions between Native American, Spanish, and US peoples? Hawaiian is an official language of Hawaii. Several public schools in Hawaii offer immersion teaching. That makes no sense to do in New York. So, yes, I think different regions should teach different things. > "and other states mandating some form of creationism" That's not a good example because we know a state can't do that because it's not constitutional. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Perhaps a better example is that some states may offer sex positive sex education, and others may teach abstinence-only? But then, what if the option you want is the opposite of what the federal curriculum requires? > "you can't improve what you don't measure" The problem is, you need to know that what you measure is important. Otherwise, you may optimize what you measure at the expensive of what you want. Grades are a form of test: grades for homework, and grades for tests created by the teacher. These new, additional tests seem to be worse than the older, except for the purpose of sucking money out of the public schools and putting it into the testing companies.