At This Point, the Process Should Have Been Halted and Completely Re-thought

Cathy Kessel:

Summary

Education policy is complicated, and cross-national comparisons of education policy are even more complicated. This post is not meant to be a comprehensive account of either, but to make the following points:

• In their official documents, not all countries communicate the kind of detailed expectations for student performance that U.S. readers are accustomed to seeing in standards documents.

• Details of curriculum and expectations for student performance may occur in teacher’s guides, textbooks, and teacher’s manuals; and in findings of empirical research.

The two posts that follow comment on two comparisons of the CCSS with standards and course of study documents from other countries, adding relevant details from textbooks, teacher’s manuals, and other sources.

Another way of putting this is simply, high performing countries don't use standards, at least as we define them post-NCLB.