Our public schools were now being compared to the world’s most famous shipwreck! And by the way: As long as this Standard Story is told, our public school teachers will get blamed for the disaster they have produced. The wreck of the Hesperus will get blamed on them and their infernal unions.
.....does it make sense to have a uniform set of “standards” for every child in each grade? Given the large academic gaps within our ginormous student population, this basic notion has never made a lick of sense. But given the way our “public discourse” works, this question has almost never been raised as the so-called “standards movement” has taken hold in the past twenty years. In their apparent main point, Hacker and Dreifus worried about the millions of kids—black kids, white kids, Hispanic kids—who are functioning near the bottom end of the vast academic ranges found in our public schools. If those kids can’t make it through high school today, how will they be helped if we make our “standards” tougher?
... Daily Howler
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Who’s Minding the Schools by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus - 
