An author with whom I collaborate as editor asked me to write her a brief summary explaining who’s behind the current brand of education reform. Her topic – and concern – is the increasing academic “rigor” being imposed on young children.
Here’s the question behind this: Teachers overwhelmingly – and parents generally – know that mandating academic rigor for young children is developmentally inappropriate. So if teachers and parents know that it’s wrongheaded and harmful to impose academic rigor on kindergartners and preschoolers, who is making it happen?
I suggested defining the forces as “politicians and policymakers.” The author asked me to give some history, as she doesn’t follow the politics of education, so she could decide whether that was the accurate characterization. I wrote her my own brief, highly opinionated history, which I’m sharing as a blog post.
During the Reagan administration, the U.S. Dept. of Education commissioned the 1983
