jar writes:
This is often not even county wide or city wide; plus the US also has more alternative non-public schools than public schools and many if not most of those base their education on a particular local Chapter of Club Christian dogma.
I can see some pros and cons to this sort of method, as there are also pros and cons to a national-curriculum method.
What's the general status of things currently?
Should the US make moves into creating more of a national standard? (Put money into political policies and hopefully a national standard)
Or should the US strengthen it's individual education segments and continue as it is currently? (Put money into individual school boards)
My guess is that the individual segments, although theoretically allowing for greater individual student attention, are falling into the possibility of allowing for greater "educational bias" into whoever happens to lead each individual board. By which I mean to imply that many individual boards are focusing on teaching kids ideological/political/religious views of the individual board as opposed to basics/objective facts/critical thinking that will lead to aid them in the advancing technological age.
If that's true, I can see two avenues for getting better:
1 - Try to reboot the system into creating national standards. National standards are harder to corrupt, but do not allow for the 'best individual student attention' possible. The current benefit of "harder to corrupt" may outweigh any other possible pros for the immediate future.
2 - Correct the individual boards and get back to focusing on student's needs. This is much, much more difficult to do as you're attempting to organize a front against many various individual segments in the education system... but also allow them to remain individual so that they have room to attend to student's individual needs as required. Theoretically, if done correctly, this system is best for each student - as no one is ever "held back" by some imposed national standard.
Perhaps aiming for some sort of hybrid-solution might work, if the whole system is aimed at for being revamped anyway?
Something with national standards for, say 60-80% of the curriculum to ensure that basics are covered adequately. And then leaving the remaining 20-40% up to the individual school boards to allow room to attend for individual student needs in each unique area?
Easy to talk about, anyway