TE 818: Synthesis: Theme 5: Standards, Measurement, and Testing

As I try to pull my thoughts together for this final synthesis, I find myself all over the place. There are so many points that I want to address in each of the three readings. The only thing that saves me is that I referred primarily to Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk for my initial post.

Let's see if I can thread a final thought together here. This summer I was on Royal Baby Watch as many others. My son (gosh, he provides so much good material) was appalled at the spectacle of it all and said on more than one occasion, "You know, we fought a war so that we wouldn't have to care about what happens on the other side of the pond." This comes crashing back to me as I reread through the points made by Apple and Sleeter and Stillman, specifically the latter, in noting that curriculum in reading/language arts and history-social sciences "rests most comfortably on historically dominant groups' perspectives, language, and ways of seeing the world" (Sleeter and Stillman, p. 43). I believe it was in the readings of Theme 4 that there was reference to structuring curriculum way back to the belief of our Founding Fathers. Well, weren't the Founding Fathers fighting to have a country and/or society that was not tied to what was going on in England? We are being corralled to teach a common curriculum based on a specific group's ideals and/or political agendas. I believe these political parties are in a panic. They have taken note of DATA such as those presented in a Bloomberg.com article (link below) that minorities are the majority. The historically majority population wants to make sure to secure their place in history before someone edges them out as they have tried, and continue trying, to do to minorities. Isn't this what led to the American Revolution in the first place?

There is nothing wrong with a national curriculum. There is nothing wrong with a national test. The premise of a national curriculum and national test and the manner in which it is implemented and interpreted is key. Shouldn't education be the cure for politics rather than the platform for it? So I make a full circle to Sir Ken Robinson's statement that "We need a revolution!" (Robinson, TED Talk, 2013).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-13/white-share-of-u-s-population-drops-to-historic-low.html