A case against standards

04-05-2011

Guest blog by Paul Thomas/Washington Post

While I appreciate the invitation to respond to the draft version of the NCTE/NCATE Standards, I must offer a blanket rejection of the standards and the process. My nearly 30 years in education and my scholarship in the fields of education and literacy have led me to view standards/accountability and bureaucratic certification processes as I do guns--Both are potentially harmless, but in reality, both tend to do far more harm than good. I see both the national standards and the teacher certification process as “the bureaucratizing of the mind”: “The freedom that moves us, that makes us take risks, is being subjugated to a process of standardization of formulas, models against which we are evaluated” (Freire, 1998, p. 111). U.S. public education and teachers have been subjugated for over a century to misguided charges of failure, calls for higher standards, and the pursuit of greater accountability and standardization through teacher certification. (more...)

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