Should All Students in US Learn the Same Things?
[MP3]https://server1.vnkienthuc.com/files/3/Media/se-ed-common-core-pt1-09jun11-web.mp3[/MP3]
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
More than forty of the fifty American states have [A]approved[/A] what are known as the common core state standards. These are lists of content that students are [A]supposed[/A] to learn at each grade level from [A]kindergarten[/A] to high school.
State governors and schools chiefs led the effort to develop the [A]standards[/A]. The project involved teachers, [A]administrators[/A], experts and public comments. The[A] final standards[/A] were released last June.
Acceptance is voluntary. But [A]acceptance[/A] helped states that entered President Obama's four-billion-dollar "Race to the Top" [A]competition [/A]for school reform.
The standards are for English language arts and math. More subjects may come later.
Supporters say the standards provide clear goals to prepare students to [A]succeed[/A] in college and in jobs. But critics of [A]national standards[/A] say the idea goes against one of America's oldest traditions -- local control of education.
[A]Political conservatives[/A] generally oppose federal [A]intervention[/A] in schools. Yet it was a Republican president, George W. Bush, who expanded testing [A]requirements[/A] to show that public schools are making yearly progress.
Still, [A]opponents[/A] of national standards call them "one-size-fits-all." They say the idea does not make sense for a country as large and [A]diverse[/A] as the United States.
One of those [A]opponents[/A] is Bill Evers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. He was an assistant education secretary under President Bush.
BILL EVERS: "We are having Washington, DC, having control and final say over, and [A]supervision[/A][A]influences[/A] have bubbled up from below. over and direction over, what is happening in the classrooms of America, in the public schools. Most changes, most positive
"So it's closing the door on innovation by locking in a national, uniform [A]bureaucratic system[/A]. But the states don't have a problem in setting their [A]curriculum[/A] -- they've been doing it ever since there've been public schools."
Richard Reilly was education secretary to President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Mr. Reilly says the federal government is not forcing the common core standards on states.
RICHARD REILLY: "Conservatives would be [A]concerned[/A] if we had federal-mandated common core standards. That's not what we have. It's a state-driven measure. High standards, [A]challenging[/A] work for young people across the country. To be challenged to do and be the same, and not one way in Texas and another way in South Carolina."
Mr. Reilly says when he served in the nineteen nineties, he pushed states to develop their own statewide standards. But some of those standards were not very strong, he says, so he believes [A]national standards [/A]are needed.
But Bill Evers says [A]technology[/A] now makes it easier to develop individual learning plans to meet the different needs of students.
BILL EVERS: "If we put a bureaucratic hand on this, we will stifle the [A]capacity[/A] for modern technology to give us a better shot at the students learning the material."
He says schools should worry less about a common curriculum and more about [A]improving[/A] teacher quality.
