National or not?

If you pay any attention to education news, you’ve no doubt heard the recent chatter about national education standards. With just a few keystrokes at your favorite Internet search engine, you can find many news articles and blog entries with many different viewpoints on the subject. Standards are important. Otherwise, how would we have consistent learning occurring in fourth grade classrooms throughout a school or a district? How would we ensure that students are learning accurate and developmentally appropriate concepts and skills? Standards are the signposts that teachers use to guide their students on the journey of learning.

Across Ohio, not only are educators focused on creating lessons and learning opportunities based on Ohio Academic Content Standards, so are educational organizations like CET that work closely with educators to create multimedia instructional resources for classroom use. We need the standards to guide us toward creating resources that support what is being taught in the classroom.

But national standards? Is there a good reason to scrap the existing state standards for a “one size fits all” approach? On the other hand, isn’t it a good idea to make sure that all kids are learning the same concepts and skills?

No matter which side of this fence you’re on, there is no easy answer.

- Diane