Raising Educational Standards
A major new program is out that will standardize and raise the level of education around the country. Officials from 48 states collaborated to produce a new framework designed to improve the quality of learning across the country, replacing a patchwork of standards that allowed large numbers of students to receive a sub-standard education. For instance, Tennessee, 87% passed a state math proficiency test in 2005, but only 21% passed the federal exam.
A number of states are already adopting the new standards, which are praised from all quarters of the education field, and by both conservatives and liberals for an approach that is designed to enhance not only knowledge of important subjects but also to expand the ability of students to think. What a concept.
Perhaps you wondered, too, which of our United States did not participate in the study when 48 of them decided it was worthwhile. The two were Texas, governed by the recently re-sanctified Rick Perry, who has talked about seceding from the union, and Alaska, which at the time this program was launched was governed by Sarah Palin. They are the king and queen of anti-intellectualism, and the fact that they are two of the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nod in 2012 speaks volumes about that party’s standards.
Absolutely every problem in our civilization stems from a lack of quality education. From the classrooms of Mississippi to the Islamic madrassas in the Middle East, society is failing generation after generation. In some cases schools are just neo-penal detention centers, housing children until their parents come home from work. In other societies, students are inundated by fundamentalist socio-political dogma.
True education teaches what children need to learn, but more important how to learn, since their lives will require that they think for themselves. The better we educate them, the more problems will be resolved, both for them and their soon to be aged parents.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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