Why our nation needs common standards
Shane Cockrell’s father was in the military, and the family moved a lot when he was growing up. Cockrell specifically recalls starting middle school in Connecticut, and then enrolling in a middle school in South Carolina when the family moved. The decline in standards was shocking.
“My mom was so appalled by the difference that she ended up pulling me out of public school,” Cockrell recalls. Now, Cockrell is himself a former member of the military with a family, and he can understand his mother’s frustration. His son was in an excellent accelerated program in Springfield, Mo., but when the family moved to Oklahoma, the “accelerated program” Cockrell had researched turned out to consist of occasional library visits.
Jonah Edelman
“I’m angry with myself because I felt like I did him a disservice by moving,” Cockrell said. His son is bored, and his grades have slipped.
It makes no sense that standards for students vary dramatically from state to state. NPR recently reportedthat a fourth-grader in Arkansas might be rated “proficient” on his state test but could be deemed failing if he lived in Massachusetts. In 2009, 90 percent of Tennessee fourth-graders were on track in reading, according to the state’s assessment. But only 28 percent of them were up to muster on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation’s