National standards have long been the third rail of education politics. The right chokes on the word national, with its implication that the feds will trample on the states’ traditional authority over public schools. And the left chokes on the word standards, with the intimations of assessments and testing that accompany it. The result is a K-12 education system in the U.S. that is burdened by an incoherent jumble of state and local curriculum standards, assessment tools, tests, texts and teaching materials. Even worse, many states have bumbled into a race to the bottom as they define their local standards downward in order to pretend to satisfy federal demands by showing that their students are proficient.

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Notes

1) Close Achievement Gap: Student come prepared to learn, student are behind due to poverty, if you stay back its hard to come back.

2) American Children Have to Work Effectively, serve as the new labor force.

3) Professional development and higher wages for teachers.

4) New Standards are needed

A) Growth Models to determine growth of high standards.

5) Afford College- To avoid debts after school.

A) Students are discouraged to go to good schools and thus attends a lower education college, such as  a community college.

B) Upward Mobility

6) Emphasize on Math and Size- Not enough classes to maintain eco. intrests.

 Thesis: A common standard and paradigm standard should be set according to ones innate abilities.

The different educational standards occurs based upon the states assessment, public, or the private schools, rather than a national standard. These different standard makes it difficult for student grade comparison, and poses a unfair comparative system, due to the presence of variables. In other words it is saying that in one school it may be easier to achieve higher grades than other schools, according to their standards. This myriad standards is what incites grade inflation, which in accurately tracks the performance of a student. If a student gets a grade he doesn’t really deserve, then the significance of his academic grade doesn’t correctly reflect a student’s intelligence.  This is why we need to set a nationwide based standard,and eliminate grade inflation. Blatantly, disabled and intellectuality disadvantaged students can have another standard that can be followed on by that section of students. Just like what Obama said “We have to ensure that all children have the opportunity for higher education” and George Bush’s “No child left behind. So basically the fabrication of two standards one used for the regular students and one for the disadvantaged students. 

*Consider national education standards

Youtube Links:

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ5kqTcXfTk

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yatQESXHP-U

Fewer than half of American eighth graders knew the purpose of the Bill of Rights on the most recent national civics examination, and only one in 10 demonstrated acceptable knowledge of the checks and balances among the legislative, executive and judicial branches, according to test results released on Wednesday.

At the same time, three-quarters of high school seniors who took the test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, were unable to demonstrate skills like identifying the effect of United States foreign policy on other nations or naming a power granted to Congress by the Constitution.

“Today’s NAEP results confirm that we have a crisis on our hands when it comes to civics education,” said Sandra Day O’Connor, the former Supreme Court justice, who last year founded icivics.org, a nonprofit group that teaches students civics through Web-based games and other tools.

The Department of Education administered the tests, known as the nation’s report card, to 27,000 4th-, 8th- and 12th-grade students last year. Questions covered themes like how government is financed, what rights are protected by the Constitution and how laws are passed. 

Average fourth-grade scores on the test’s 300-point scale rose slightly since the exam was last administered, in 2006, to 157 from 154. Average eighth-grade scores were virtually unchanged at 151. The scores of high school seniors — students who are either eligible to vote or about to be — dropped to 148 from 151. Those scores mean that about a quarter of 4th- and 12th-grade students, and about one-fifth of 8th graders, ranked at the proficient or advanced levels. 

“The results confirm an alarming and continuing trend that civics in America is in decline,” said Charles N. Quigley, executive director of the Center for Civic Education, a nonprofit group in California. “During the past decade or so, educational policy and practice appear to have focused more and more upon developing the worker at the expense of developing the citizen.” 

One bright spot was that Hispanic students, who make up a growing proportion of the country’s population and student body, narrowed the gap between their scores and those of non-Hispanic white students. On average, Hispanic eighth-graders scored 137 and non-Hispanic whites 160. That 23-point gap was down from 29 points in 2006.  Among high school seniors, the gap narrowed to 19 points from 24 points. 

The achievement gap between blacks and white in civics, which is about 25 points at the fourth- and eighth-grade levels and 29 points among high school seniors, did not change significantly. 

The results showed that a smaller proportion of fourth and eighth graders demonstrated proficiency in civics than in any other subject the federal government has tested since 2005, except history, American students’ worst subject. 

“We face difficult challenges at home and abroad,” Justice O’Connor said in a statement. “Meanwhile, divisive rhetoric and a culture of sound bites threaten to drown out rational dialogue and debate. We cannot afford to continue to neglect the preparation of future generations for active and informed citizenship.”

By SAM DILLON

Published: May 4, 2011

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/education/05civics.html?_r=1&ref=education

Today, there were lots of articles about the inflated high school grades (the so-called “progress reports”) which turned out to be almost as inflated as those for elementary and middle schools. 75 percent of NYC high schools got As or Bs, and only one school got an F.

Grade Inflation