Hi John. I enjoy your posts and I certainly didn't intend to scramble the many issues that arise with respect to standardized testing, equitable school funding or federal sticks and carrots to conform local schools.
My post was specifically directed to the statement you had written which, in my view, raised the interesting question of the wisdom of the federal government's intervening to mandate content standards, especially with respect to hot-button issues such as creationism vs evolution and sex education.
And, as you stated, on that issue it appears we disagree. Your recent post states:
I think there are certain education minimums without which it's difficult if not impossible to function in the modern, complex, post-industrial, highly globalized, yada, yada world. I think that's a national issue and one in which, if folk in Texas or Oklahoma wish to opt out, the rest of the country needs to say something like "we're in this together."
I'd agree with that statement but we should ask some very serious questions about whether we want to establish some type of "federal oversight rule." For the reasons set forth in my previous post I believe that establishing such a precedent would be a dangerous mistake.
Who decides that the content selected by any one of our handful of subcultures is "wrong?" And if it is determined to be wrong, who should judge that the content is so critically erroneous that it would make it "difficult if not impossible [for the wrongly educated] to function in the modern, complex, post-industrial, highly globalized, yada, yada world"?
Would that be a "common wisdom" determination of the current political majority and mirrored through their legislators or the current president, would it be a judgement made by a handful of bookish educators or would the courts decide?
And what criteria would they use to make such a decision?
And if this country soon turns back to a fundamentalist Bush-like government would the fundamentalists then impose their will upon your children's children?
Additionally, on what legal basis would the federal government mandate education standards that have historically been left within the discretion of states, counties and local school districts based on the sound principle that each and every community has the right to educate its own children?
And, finally, would such a rule be effective? Can we change culturally and religiously grounded views by employing federal mandates that contravene the strongly held moral and religious views of stubborn and sometimes ignorant people, or will such attempts simply create a snap-back resistance that could prolong the problem?
I suspect that if we let time take its course such backwards "thinking" will not even be an issue after a couple of decades. Life experiences and the "liberal press" will serve to counter educate any discerning students who've been placed in the dark by such standards, and the less discerning students will probably continue to believe whatever their parents and community tell them to believe.
As for me, I don't want to risk diluting my voice in the education of my children by empowering the federal government to set content standards. With that in mind, I don't think I ought to have, through my elected federal representatives, the power to stifle the "wrong" voices of other communities that might consider my views as wrong as I think their views are. Ed |
