re: #99 ProLifeLiberal

Standardized Tests don’t do great for Critical Thinking.

However, I agree with everything else. A National Curriculum is a good idea.

It’s common elsewhere in the world, but it’ll never happen in the USA. Local control is entrenched in our whole system of public education, which essentially politicizes the curriculum development process. The best we can hope for is a sensible state curriculum that is so kick-ass that other states will adopt it, just to keep up with the joneses. Even then, any state curriculum still has to get through the state assembly and senate and lots of public forums. And, if parents don’t like the curriculum, they can pull their kids out of the public system entirely.

As watered-down as most public school curricula are, wingnut parents already homeschool or church school their kids, a lot of whom then move on to places like Liberty U and Oral Roberts U. So, I doubt a national curriculum would have much of an effect, in the short run, anyway.