The U.S. Department of Education has been gobbling up more turf over the last several years, issuing mandates and pushing a one-size-fits-all set of standards.  Now the most disturbing move is to implement a national K-12 education curriculum.

What’s wrong with that?  To those who advocate for efficiency in education, this may seem like a good thing.  It’s anything but.

A broad group of education reformers who are fighting this initiative has published a manifesto, titled “Closing the Door on Innovation.”

“A one-size-fits-all national curriculum based on mediocre high-school standards will stifle the educational innovation essential to closing the racial gap in academic achievement,” said Abigail Thernstrom, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, who signed the manifesto.

Bill Evers, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Policy under President George W. Bush, recently participated in a question-and-answer session regarding a national curriculum.

Q: Some might say that a national curriculum would promote efficiency.  What is your response?

A: The efficiency we should seek in K-12 education should be systemic and be grounded in sound rules and institutions. If we have pluralistic institutions with the right incentives, we will have better learning and more efficient and productive schooling than if we have a uniform and unified national curriculum. Such a uniform curriculum can too easily be bent in some wrongheaded way in the future.  Monolithic national uniformity is inefficient if it cuts off examination of alternatives, readily becomes stagnant, resists feedback, and all too easily becomes captive of future fads and fancies.”

Q: Is there danger in a one-size-fits-all curriculum?

A: Officials in Washington cannot design a curriculum that is fitting and appropriate for all classrooms in huge country like the United States.

(more…)

As if bailing out banks and the auto industry wasn’t enough, now Washington, D.C. wants more control over schools.

In order for a state to apply for its share of President Obama’s Race to the Top stimulus funds, it will have to explain how it will use those federal dollars on a list of suggested education reforms.  This week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said “thanks but no thanks.”

This was the proper decision for Texas, and here’s why:

• Education has historically been a state issue, with power in Texas delegated to the Texas Legislature and the State Board of Education. Texas lawmakers control funding and school requirements, and the State Board makes decisions about curriculum.  All of these are elected positions directly accountable to the voters at least once every four years.

(more…)