A Conversation About Standards

Recently a reader was kind enough to post a comment on by blog:

"Pardon my ignorance, but don't kids need to know what they need to know regardless of where they are? And why would national standards stop you from having community involvement.

All of life has standards that you either meet or don't - why should schools be any different? It is time we start holding kids accountable for their own success - isn't "that" what this country is made out of - hard work by those who are passionate about something?"

I would like to comment about several points.

How do we define what "they need to know?"

Is it what is going to guarantee them economic success in the capitalist system of the US?

Is it what is going to give them entrée into the intellectual elite of the university system?

Is it what is going to make them thoughtful, curious, lifetime learners?

Is it what is going to inspire them to change our world and give them the critical tools to do so?

Another question, who is the they? Students are becoming increasingly, increasingly diverse. They bring with them different racial, national, religious and sexual identities. All of these imply a different worldview. These "standards" are never neutral. In fact they imply a dominant, normative set of knowledge and behaviors that is categorically white, European, and middle class. Often this "school culture" is constructed through content, like Literature and History, with capital L and H, but it also can be constructed through the attitudes and practices of Math and Science pedagogies. To assert that all students "need" to know this information, these attitudes, this culture...is racist.

Now, of course I admit that the reality is, for economic success and a greater chance of improving life chances, it is important to have access to a high level of standard academic fare. However, what happens is that these standards have been used against the students who were not properly prepared, by their communities and their schools to meet the standards, and so it becomes a loosing game, by which the standards are used to keep them from advancing to the maximum of their potential. Especially under the Bush administration, standards were used to color the public schools a "failures", so that public funds could be siphoned off to private schools, charters collaborating with "business partners", and faith-based initiatives. Public money in the private interest.

The interesting question is whether this pattern will continue under Obama. I hope that it doesn't, but Arne hasn't suggested otherwise.

If we are going to have standards, they need to be drastically rewritten, and the evaluation of those standards, and subsequently what is done with that evaluations drastically rethought.

Finally, I'm not sure what "all of life has standards" actually means, but the rest of the paragraph about hard work in success in the American dream...has largely, conclusively, statistically, been proven by sociologists and economists to be largely that...a dream. Social mobility is largely illusion, and for those who do achieve it, usually involves dramatic losses to sense of self, rootedness, and background.

In fact, that to me is the scary, underbelly to the Obama myth. I have tremendous respect for Obama, and I know he worked his but off, for decades, to get to where he is. But if anyone thinks he is a regular joe, they are off their rocker. He lived in Indonesia, Hawaii, had a government official as a dad, in fact two international father figures, and went to one of the best private schools in Hawaii. He worked hard, but he had a hell of a head start. And yet, the Obama myth suggests that any struggling Black kid in North Philly, College Park, South Bronx, East Cleveland, or any similar place can "make it" to the top. Do you believe that?