Fixing Schools - It's Not About Consensus

SCHOOL POLITICS: WHO SPEAKS FOR THE CHILDREN?

http://bigthink.com/ideas/39064

A Question of Degree

The value of a college degree has come under scrutiny

http://www.trendcentral.com/life/a-question-of-degree/

How to Raise the Standard in America's Schools

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.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1891468,00.html

National Education Standards ….They’re Back!

http://hnn.us/articles/22591.html

National Standards: Do we need them?

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1176620

National Standards

Canada’s Education System and National Standards
Are National Standards Necessary?

Are national standards necessary for good quality, comparable social programs? Or can equal and comparable programs emerge without national oversight?

http://www.mowatcentre.ca/opinions.php?opinionID=19

The New Bottom-up Authority

The top-down, authoritarian model found in most classrooms today looks very different from the model many students experience when they learn online. The classroom’s hierarchical approach, with the sage on the stage, requires, (and, ultimately demands) passivity and deference on the part of the learner. Informal, interest-driven networked learning, with its access to large stores of information and variety of opinion, on the other hand, takes a much different view of authority. It’s usually peer based, largely democratic, meritocratic, often creates dissonance due to variety and demands evaluation. Knowing what we do about active learning, one would seem clearly superior to the other.

http://www.ed4wb.org/?p=164