Raising the Bar; Education

Besich, Lauren

Raising the bar; education. (2013, Jun 15). The Economist, 407, 30. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/docview/1368124428?accountid=10361 

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Summary

This article published in The Economist explains in basic terms the relationship between federal and state governments in relation to state standards.  Until the recent adoption of the Common Core State Standards, each state set their own standards that determined student proficiency of Math and English skills, however, if states failed to produced students who didn’t measure up to national standards, they were punished.  In efforts to bridge this gap, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers have pushed to implement Common Core State Standards in Math and English.  So far, 45 states have agreed to adopt these “more rigorous” standards, which will ideally streamline the education of students in those states.  The article covers some complaints from both ends of the political spectrum, but the main question still stands:  Will tougher standards produce smarter students?

Evaluation

This article helped me to better understand the reasoning behind the push for Common Core Standards.  The National Centre for Educational statistics (NCES), which is a federal body, saw a discrepancy between what states deem “proficient,” and what states deem “proficient.”  Obviously that is a problem, so the government wants to fix the problem.  As with any government-led initiative to solve a problem, there are critics.  I believe we will only see how well Common Core works after an entire generation of students passes through the education system with these new standards, which is quite a while down the road.