Point, Counterpoint: Should All U.S. Students Meet a Single Set of National Proficiency Standards?

Wallstreet Journal--June 22, 2012

The U.S. has a problem: Today's young Americans are falling behind their peers in other countries when it comes to academic performance. What makes the situation particularly concerning is research showing a close link between economic competitiveness and the knowledge and skills of a nation's workforce.

What's the solution?

One school of thought says the U.S. needs to set clear standards about what schools should teach and students should learn—and make it uniform throughout the country. These advocates say our decentralized approach to education isn't preparing students for the demanding challenges they will face in a global economy.

Others say be careful what you wish for. Proposing that all children meet the same academic standards, they say, is essentially proposing a nationalized system of education, where everyone is taught the same thing at the same time and in the same way. The best way to improve student performance, they argue, is to give schools the ability to experiment with different standards, assessments and curricula to see what does and doesn't work.

Problems with Standardized Testing

Need some research to convince policy makers that standardized tests are not the answer and that we should advocate for authentic, performance and alternative assessment?

• Ravitch: Standardized Testing Undermines Teaching - http://www.npr.org/2011/04/28/135142895/ravitch-standardized-testing-undermines-teaching
• When Will the Testing Bubble Burst? - http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/04/when_will_the_testing_bubble_b.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dbb7ec542a97d3b%2C0

Reflections of a Dance School Dropout

By Cindi Rigsbee
Published Online Education Week Teacher

March 16, 2011

At the beginning of a new calendar year, everyone resolves to get healthy, eat better, and exercise more. I myself know my limitations when it comes to exercise. I’m limited in that I don’t like it. I also have an aversion to sweat.

So this past January I decided to get creative. I thought about what type of exercise I would most enjoy. I wanted to try an activity that wouldn’t seem like exercise at all. Then remembered my teen years and how much I loved my dance classes. I could again be a dancer, exercising in a way that would be fun and calorie- burning at the same time.

Arts Education for Minority Children Drops



Art-Less Generation A new survey finds

that 18- to 24-year-olds received significantly less

arts education that did the previous

generation of young people. 

Note: Numbers are rounded.
SOURCE: National Endowment for the Arts



by Erik W. Robelen  •  Education WeekPublished Online: March 8, 2011

Published in Print: March 9, 2011

 
Fewer children are getting access to arts education, whether at school or elsewhere, according to a new analysis¹ of federal data issued by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Especially alarming is that the overall decline in recent decades is coupled with a big drop for African-American and Hispanic youths.

The research, part of a broader look² at arts participation by U.S. adults, finds that fewer 18-year-olds surveyed in 2008 reported having received any arts education in childhood than did those surveyed in 1982, dropping from about 65 percent to 50 percent. The report also contains survey data in 1992 and 2002, and each successive time, the overall figure was lower.

Honoring Inspired Teaching

Dear NEA Fine Arts Caucus member:

In my public middle school in Queens, we had a chorus teacher who made that school a home for many, many kids, including me. This teacher, Mr. DiNapoli, took the chorus on trips to DC, bike trips around the city, attended our bar mitzvahs and confirmations, and ultimately served as a locus of community – not only leading the chorus with great skill, but teaching us about discipline and citizenship. I will be forever grateful for the world-class education I received in my neighborhood school through Mr. DiNapoli. It is impossible for me to imagine what school would have been like without him.