Tuesday, January 24, 2006

More information on the push for a national curriculum

Daryl at Home Education & Other Stuff found more information about the issue of the federal government trying to establish a national curriculum. Spunky wrote about this yesterday.
There has been a great decline in public education over the last fifty years. During the same time there has been a great loss of local control. I think the two are related. Public safety is an important issue, but the police departments are not controlled by a national organization. By adding more and more levels of bureaucracy it is harder for parents to have any kind of influence in the public schools.

If a national curriculum is established there were be great promises of good intentions, lots of different groups will get involved pushing for their special interests. There will be people who want a curriculum to emphasis reading and math. Others will want good citizenship. Others will push for goals even farther from basic academics, like diversity, environmentalism, death education, and so on. I doubt the final result with be anything useful.

Education will continue to decline in the public schools. So more and more parents will turn to private schools and homeschooling.

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