The 2008 Common Core Sales Job: Part Three
In 2008, the National Governors Association (NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and Achieve, Inc., released a report, Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-class Education.
I have examined this report in two previous posts. In Part One of my series on this report, I considered the report’s absence of discussions of national debt in promoting the faulty goal of “global competition” via nationally standardized education. In Part Two, I consider the individuals authoring, “advising on,” and financially supporting the report.
In this third and final post, I examine the idea of “benchmarking,” which is supposed to be the primary purpose of the NGA/CCSSO report.
Nevertheless, this report is not a detailed accounting of benchmarking specific standards. It is only an argument in favor of the idea of international benchmarking of American education standards.
The “benchmarking” promoted by this report is hardly sufficient for determining national “success.”
“Benchmarking” to Beat All Others
The report begins with stating that the purpose of international (educational) benchmarking is “to identify and learn from top performers and rapid improvers.” The question is, “top performers” and “rapid improvers” in what sense?
Why, in terms of nebulously-defined, internationally-compared “graduation rates” and, of course, on international tests such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS).
“Graduation rate” is can be defined in any number of ways. One might count only individuals who make it to high school, or who make it to the final year of high school, or who complete high school in a given number of years, or who technically quit high school but complete some alternative course of study.
Graduation rates are also affected by the courses studied. Some “graduates” might The 2008 Common Core Sales Job: Part Three | deutsch29: