Hi Tom,
-> A mil spec is a standard that must be met by a supplier.
......
-> I was not aware I was attempting to represent Dave's POV.  I gave an
-> opinion which I believe was my POV.  I only pointed out that I
-> understand the mil spec idea which seem to confuse you.
I understand what mil specs are. I was not following the CONNECTION that
Dave was making between mil specs and educational standards, as I don't
believe them to be 100% analagous.
-> Setting this standard may in fact create a product that is not of the
-> highest possible quality for the $$$$ spent.
True. My husband works for a company that has been a big government
supplier and had to contend with mil specs for a long time. This problem
(that you mention above with the entire mil spec process) is what has
lead to the abondoment of that procedure. The military and the
government are (I believe) no longer using this procedure in new
contracts. At least, that's what I gather from what hubby tells me about
more recent contracts they have bid on.
-> A National Curriculum by design would probably be dumbed down to
-> accommodate the lesser academically inclined students.
This is certainly one possibility, but I don't believe that it is the
only one. I have read a fair amount on this topic in Educational
publications which intend teachers as their primary audience, and many
educators are warning against this. It is problematic, as we have many
special needs and special ed students in the system. How should the
standards treat them? Should it ignore them? Should we make the
standards so lax that ALL students can attain them? In that case they
are meaningless and no improvement over what we have now. In any case,
quite a complex problem. BUT if we go in with our eyes open, and aware
of such problems and conflicts, perhaps there is a way to deal with it.
The alternative, of course, is to do nothing and give up.
-> The result could be that districts who must only meet this minimum
-> standard would be overly generic.  While it is nice to believe that
-> teachers would be able to hold a high standard in the education
-> process I have seen little in the current methodology to indicate
-> that is the case.
I can see what makes you write this. However, to already admit defeat is
to accept the status quo and attempt nothing.
-> SK>I'm sorry, but this is just a bit too "Big Brother" for me to buy.
-> I'll give you one small example for the believe it or not.  To my
-> limited knowledge no history books used in the schools today inform
-> students that OUR government used soldiers as lab rats in nuclear
-> above ground testing even after they knew what the results would be.
-> The freedom of information act brought this to light many years ago.
-> Now for the hypothetical, if tomorrow definite proof of
-> extraterrestrials was discovered would it be surpressed ?  What if it
-> was proven without a doubt the aides virus could be transmitted by
-> mosquitos ?
-> Information is surpressed all the time by our government, right down
-> to the school district level.
I am well aware of the example on nuclear testing that you cite above,
and agree that your hypothetical examples would likely be targets of
information supression. But I think that that is INDEPENDENT of anything
to do with the school system. The supression of the nuclear testing
results and activitity had NOTHING to do with schools. You have to make
some sort of tie-in showing how adoption of a National curriculum or
standard would cause teachers or schools to supress publicly available
information, and I just don't believe that would happen. As soon as
something like the nuclear testing has come to light, there have been
teachers in their classrooms talking about it.
-> Teachers would find out about these things >on their own and be free
-> to include them in their classroom instruction >as they deemed
-> appropriate (a good argument in favor of teacher >tenure!).
-> By your statement IMO it would be a pretty good argument against
-> teacher tenure.  We all bring our bias to the floor and as educators
-> need to limit our personal input into the educational process.
Huh? I said nothing about personal points of view. I was just discussing
proliferation of information.
-> In defense of Texas which I know little about educationally.  They
-> probably have fallen victim to the teach to a test syndrome as their
-> livelihood depends on the performance of their students.
Others who have more experience with the system in Texas have also
corroborated that they have fallen into the "teach to the test"
syndrome. The primary reason for this is that teacher evaluation is
heavily tied to student performance on these tests. :-(
Sheila
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