3 ms·

Who decided what the old standards were, and why should we trust them any better?

• dalke 12y ago
  That's a meaningless question. The standards are decided by the states, so it's exactly the same organizations who make the decisions now, post-NCLB and post-Common Core, as before. The factors which go into the decisions have changed.
  • skwirl 12y ago
    And that is a meaningless comment that tries to draw a distinction without a difference and entirely dodges the core of the issue. So - What factors went into the decisions before, and why were they better than the new factors?
    • dalke 12y ago
      You asked a 15 word question which shows that you don't know the basics of what's going on. The answer you want requires pages of response, because you haven't even given me a scaffold upon which to start. Do you want to start with the start of education policies in the US? The post-war baby boom changes like "New Math" and "Back to Basics"? We have a federal system, so there are over 50 different systems (including territories), to say nothing of local school boards. There's the increasing desire to run schools as a business, rather than as a public good. There's the increasing push for removing union protections. I think it's funded partially by a way for for-profit companies to make money off of all of the education dollars, hid behind the religion of free market. That said, none of these are new factors. It's all a difference in weighting factors over the last century or two. One of those reweightings is Bill Gates, whose foundations funded nearly $250 million towards Common Core. That buys a lot of influence if done right. It's not worth my time to educate you when you don't know the basics and would rather ask unanswerable questions than research it yourself.