From the October 28, 1996 Daily Report Card:
-> *1   EDUCATION:  A NATIONAL CURRICULUM FOR A NATIONAL PRIORITY?
-> Education has edged out the economy, the environment and
-> even crime as the issue that concerns most Americans, writes Sara
-> Mosle in the N.Y. TIMES MAGAZINE (10/27).  However, the two
-> candidates for President appear only interested in debating
-> variations of school choice as a remedy for what ails public
-> education, according to Mosle.
->    For Mosle, choice without standards is no choice at all.
-> She goes on to describe the "vague" expectations of students in
-> American classrooms, and cites a personal example of what can go
-> wrong in a classroom without standards.  In her classroom of 32,
-> third-grade students in a disadvantaged New York City community, a
-> hands-on science experiment disintegrated, partially due to the size
-> of her class and the content of the district-mandated
-> curriculum.
->    Mosle views standards as the savior for public schools.
-> According to the author, today's emphasis on equal opportunity as
-> well as achievement is what distinguishes the standards movement from
-> past crusades to apply rigorous standards to students.  She notes
-> three key players on today's standards stage:  Diane
-> Ravitch, Columbia U professor who also worked in the U.S. DoEd
-> under President George Bush; E.D. Hirsch Jr., an author and
-> creator of the Core Curriculum; and Albert Shanker, president of the
-> American Federation of Teachers.
->    Mosle elaborates on Shanker's pursuit of higher academic
-> standards.  "We already have a national curriculum," she quotes
-> Shanker as writing in his weekly N.Y. TIMES column.  "But it is set
-> by textbook publishers, and its standards are very low."  She quotes
-> Chester Finn, a former assistant secretary of education in the Reagan
-> Administration, who conceded that he agrees with
-> Shanker "four out of every five" days.  "But he is not
-> representative of his union.  He is way ahead of his membership,"
-> said Finn.
->    Shanker remarks on the irony of Finn's comment.  "But that's
-> not what Dole and other Republicans say," he told Mosle.  "They say
-> it's the union leaders who are awful and the members who are
-> wonderful."
->    According to Mosle, "choice ... makes no sense without
-> standards, for how can parents choose without a means to compare
-> schools?"  Yet, both conservatives and liberals attack the
-> standards movement:  conservatives because they fear "any sort of
-> outside meddling in their neighborhood schools," and liberals
-> because they claim standards will lead to "unimaginative teaching and
-> a greater reliance on standardized tests, which they see as biased
-> against poor and minority-group children," she writes.
->    Mosle chaffs at these claims.  "If our schools are failing,
-> as some people claim, it probably argues against, rather than
-> for, more local control," she muses.  Mosle also challenges
-> voucher proponents by observing that a voucher plan instituted by the
-> Dutch has resulted in "the least consistent school quality in
-> northern continental Europe."  Other nations that have far less
-> schools operating subpar share in common a national, standardized
-> curriculum, writes Mosle, quoting data produced by Hirsch.
->    Diane Ravitch, in her "National Standards in American
-> Education:  A Citizen's Guide," points out that "nations that
-> establish national standards do so to insure equality of
-> education as well as higher achievement because they make
-> explicit what they expect children to learn to insure that all
-> children have access to the same educational opportunities."
-> Mosle brings up Catholic schools as a "powerful example" proving
-> Ravitch's point.  Mosle:  "While the achievement gap between
-> disadvantaged and more privileged students widens in high school, it
-> actually narrows dramatically in most parochial institutions." The
-> reason:  high expectations and standards for all students,
-> according to Mosle.
->    Mohegan elementary school in the South Bronx is lauded by
-> Mosle for using Hirsch's "core knowledge" curriculum through the
-> sixth grade.  She looks favorably on his curriculum, which
-> "specifies lesson content in the basic subjects," as illustrative of
-> what a national curriculum might look like.  "Before core,
-> there was no sequence," said Evelyn Hernandez, a fifth-grade
-> teacher.  "Teachers taught whatever they wanted, but nothing was
-> connected.  They weren't building the knowledge for the
-> background that children needed to be critical thinkers.  But
-> after we implemented core in 1991, the content was much more
-> exciting than in their textbooks.  I knew what I was supposed to be
-> doing.  The curriculum provided the topic, but I could teach it
-> however I wanted."
->    In Mosle's words, "content matters."  However, she concedes
-> that standards will be meaningless unless states and cities
-> allocate sufficient resources to help students meet them.
-> "Schools and classes need to be smaller, and a new curriculum
-> will require new supplies."
->    Mosle concludes by urging the winner of the 1996
-> Presidential contest to "seize the moment and advocate the
-> creation of a national curriculum with high-stakes assessments
-> and the means to help students meet them."
--- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10
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