Education For The 21st Century
Reading various commentaries about what should be taught in our schools in order to provide the best opportunity for student success in the 21st Century has got me thinking. It seems there are at least three primary areas that education should address: National/State/Local Needs, Economic Needs, and Personal Growth. Of course there could be other needs, perhaps many others, but properly addressing these three should give students a boost toward success.
By national/state/local needs I am referring to concepts such as “citizenship” which is already a core part of school curricula. The Common Core is promising as far as a national goal of what should be necessary of all students on a national level, but it is constrained by the numbing effects of politicians wanting it endlessly evaluated through the use of high-stakes tests, certainly not the way most educators would like to measure progress. State and local needs are similarly important in addressing the concerns of both polities, but there needs to be some sort of watchdog that will keep purely partisan requirements under control, especially those that do little