Questioning the Convergence on National Standards
By Jim StergiosNovember 23rd, 2010
The Southern writer Flannery O’Connor’s Everything that Rises Must Converge is a collection of tragicomic pulp fiction stories about dangerous human flaws and the “blind wills and low dodges of the heart” found in everyday life.
People have failings. That’s the way we’re built and that’s the way of the world. But there are “game days” when a lot is riding on decisions and you have to muster the courage of your convictions for the benefit of all. This summer, that game day came on a scorcher in late July and concerned whether Massachusetts should or should not adopt national standards. In exchange for $250 million in federal support over four years (about 1/144 of overall school spending over that period), the Patrick Administration’s handpicked Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) voted to replace the Commonwealth’s best-in-the-nation academic standards with inferior quality national standards and assessments.
Since 2001, the Commonwealth’s English Language standards and MCAS testing