Talk:Education Week

Common Standards

These two words together form an oxymoron. Anything that is "common" is mediocre. The only standard worthy of consideration is excellence and excellence is unique. Everyone is unique, but not everyone is excellent because some have not yet reached their full potential. This achievement of full potentials is the purpose of education. Educational performance standards should be doing better than last time. This means adjusting for the shortcomings of our last attempt. Where groups are concerned, these adjustments are the responsibility of the group, otherwise the adjustments are the responsibility of the person doing the acting. We will never improve education until we teach towards getting students to pursue excellence and to take responsibility for their own learning and to correct their own mistakes. This means paying attention to errors and not to right answers. How dare anyone presume to say what is best for a unique fellow human being? Jay Powell18:52, 22 January 2013 (UTC)98.236.145.115 (talk)

It is very hard to see what you are arguing for here, except that you clearly have some sort of dislike for standards, and judging from your repeated use of the codeword "responsibility", I would guess you are coming in with a right-wing political agenda (though for the life of me, I don't understand the right's objection to setting a generally accepted lower bar on what constitutes an adequate education).

For someone who apparently demands careful attention to words, you should do so yourself. "Mediocre" as a definition for "common" comes way down on the list - for example, it is the fifth definition on Merriam-Webster. The first definition they show is "of or relating to a community at large"; the second is "belonging to or shared by two or more people or groups". Both of these are intended by "Common Core" - they are standards of education that have been adopted (and so are shared) by (so far) 37 states and are intended to be accepted by the American community at large as a set of standards defining the core elements that all students should master to be prepared for their next educational steps and/or the work force. No one has ever claimed that these are to be maximums (which I assume you are claiming with your "How dare anyone presume to say what is best for a unique fellow human being?") but rather widely accepted (Common) elements that all students, regardless of their potential, should achieve. Obviously, the students with greater potentials will be expected to achieve more. Further, your comment "This means paying attention to errors and not to right answers." implies you haven't read the Common Core and its supporting documentation, or you would know that the core standards are not "questions and answers" but are elements and approaches that specifically encourage problem solving and critical thinking.108.74.28.81 (talk) 05:04, 8 October 2013 (UTC)