Remember when we had higher standards? Neither do I

12-09-2010

Guest blog by Alfie Kohn/Washington Post

"In recent years, parents have cried in dismay that their children could not read out loud, could not spell, could not write clearly,” while “employers have said that mechanics could not read simple directions. Many a college has blamed high schools for passing on students . . . who could not read adequately to study college subjects; high schools have had to give remedial reading instruction to boys and girls who did not learn to read properly in elementary schools…" On and on goes the devastating indictment of our education system. Or -- well, perhaps I shouldn’t say “our” education system, since few of us had much to say about school policy when this article appeared. . . in 1954. Similar jeremiads were published, of course, in the 1980s (see especially the Reagan administration’s influential and deeply dishonest “Nation at Risk” report) and in the 1970s… (more…)

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Remember when we had higher standards? Neither do I

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