Essay on National Education Standards

Teachers shape the minds of students to realize what their purpose is in life. Lately, because of certain educational reforms, it has been hard for teachers to say what they need to say. “In 40-plus states, the math and English guidelines determine the knowledge students have to master by the end of each grade, what they’ll be tested on this year, and in many cases, how teachers and principals will be rated at their jobs once those test scores are released” (Strauss). Most educational reforms are adopting standardized testing and should be reconsidered. Statistics even show that since we have taken part in reforms like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Common Core State Standards math and reading are declining. These standards tell teachers what to teach and what the students should know by the end of the school year. The reforms also evaluate teacher performance by how well the students learn the information. Some people believe educational reforms should not be telling teachers how to teach their students, and others believe that the reforms are absolutely fine the way they are. However the truth is educational reforms are yet to be perfected.

Throughout this paper, I will be giving oversight to the four curriculum ideologies; Social Reconstruction, Social Efficiency, Scholar Academic and Learner

The American education system has, since its inception, been subject to ridicule and disdain on the parts of many. Despite the fact that many scholars believe that the system has flaws, there has been no consensus as to what needs to be changed. Sam Chaltain, the previous National Director of the Forum for Education and Democracy and now an active participant in educational reform debates, argues that the system should shift its focus on standardization away from students and instead to teachers and schools. Nikhil Goyal, author of Schools on Trial: How Freedom and Creativity Can Fix Our Educational Malpractice, holds that we should do away with standardization altogether, giving children the opportunity to accomplish what they want with their education and allow them to flourish in a less stifling environment. Peter Gow, the author of a multitude of books about potential changes in school policy, focuses on fourth grade specifically, suggesting that a year in elementary school focused solely on cultivating reading skills would greatly benefit students in the future. Although this is a radical stance, Gow’s point remains valid; teaching

The American public educational system is filled with an assortment of problems. Most students are graduating with less knowledge and capability than similar students in other industrialized countries. Classroom disruptions are surprisingly common, and in some classrooms, nearly continuous. The public education system is having difficulty adjusting to the no child left behind act. The No Child Left Behind(NCLB) is a landmark in education reform designed to improve student achievement and change the culture of American’s schools.

Ironically, this comes after five decades of debate on how to improve our nation's school systems. The idea of educational reform, though, is certainly not new. In the 18th century, philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote a novel called Emile that described a view of education that included self-actualization, relevant curriculum, and hands on learning (Rousseau, 2003). John Dewey, born just prior to the Civil War, was a staunch proponent of educational reform education being a continual process for every child so that they could reach their potential through adequate stimuli. This was to be done by understanding the child's interests, capacity, and habits (Henson, 2003). And, in the 20th century the ideas of Maria Montessori,

Education in the United States is a very crucial part of a person’s life. Going to school opens doors and facilitates the pathway for future individual achievement and economic success. Formal education is a conscious effort by human society to convey the skills and modes of thought considered essential for social functioning.

“Our educational goal [is] the production of caring, competent, loving, lovable people” . The students found in the schools across the United State are the future of America. They are the doctors, teachers, business people, lawyers and many other roles, that will be out in the workforce in the years to come. What they learn in school will impact them immensely; it is the responsibility of a teacher to give students the best education in order to ensure the common good of the future. It is essential for students to not only learn content matter, but also the skills to enable them to participate in a democracy. Due to standardized testing, the emphasis of education has become on score and rankings rather than learning. A standardized test does not look at the whole student, the scores provided are on a very narrow aspect of education. In the classroom, there are countless ways for teachers to assess the student as a whole person not as just a score. Standardized tests scores should not be the sole criteria for determining a student’s academic achievement.

A highly significant change to the national curriculum made at the 2014 update for KS3 is the introduction of assessment without levels (Department for Education, 2014). The system by which children were assigned a numerical level based on their attainment was ceased on the commencement of the new curriculum in September 2014 for all subjects, including science (Department for Education, 2013). This action was implemented based on a report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum review, which suggested that due to changes made to the curriculum over various reassessments, the concept of attainment targets, on which level descriptors were based, had been clouded, making levels difficult to understand and apply (Department for Education, 2015). This meant that level descriptors were no longer clear and should be removed to allow assessment to focus more closely on an individuals’ specific strengths and weaknesses on the content within the curriculum, rather than simply focus on ensuring that a child achieved a certain arbitrary level (Expert Panel for the National Curriculum Review, 2011). The abolition of levels has given schools more freedom to design their own assessment framework and address the perceived issue that emphasis of levels as a tool for measuring school performance had led to negative influence on the way individual pupils were assessed (Department for Education, 2015). Bell (2014) suggests that the introduction of assessment without levels is a

Based on the definition of society and culture from the chapter one lecture note, "Society as people who are interacting in a defined area with shared culture" and chapter two in the textbook, "Culture are the ways of thinking, ways of acting, and material objects that together form a people's way of life," people

First, essentialism focuses in teaching through core courses, using the essentials of knowledge and development. Essentialism is a traditional teacher-centered philosophy. It emphasizes the great importance of transferring knowledge from the older being to the younger generation. The teacher is the expert on the subject, and students listen and learn what is being taught. The teacher is also the role model to his or her students. School is the institution students come to learn.

Currently, instructors are pressured by state education department to adjust school curricula to meet the expectations of the standardized test. Educators alter the curriculum to “match the [standardized] test” (“How Standardized”). Therefore, instructors are limited and classroom instruction is focused around test preparation for the annual standardized test. Teachers are forced to abandon their creative lessons and “teach the test,” or concentrating only on the material that will be evaluated (“How Standardized”). This frequently involves taking multiple choice tests that are formatted identically to the standardized test and only memorizing facts, formulas, and items included only on the standardized tests (“How Standardized”). Even though test scores may improve, students are not learning how to think critically and perform better in other subjects that are not on the test (“How Standardized”). Instructional time is limited in the other subject areas such as science, social studies, music, and art. Instructors feel “handicapped” and plead to state officials abandon these standardized tests for the sake of the “quality of the instruction in American schools” (Zimmerman 206). School curricula are being modified only to prepare students for a single test, not for education the students need in the future.

Essentialism will be a part of my classroom because I will be teaching science. Science is part of the basis of

The education system has been a controversial issue among educators. Requirements of school do not let student choose what they want to study for their future. It’s a big issue to force student study specific curriculums, which don’t help them improve, and what they like to create something. Educators choose a general system for education to all students which based on general knowledge. Intelligent or genius students have to be in that system of education, which doesn’t let them improve their creativity. Educators attempt to change that system to make it better, but their changing was not that great to be an example for the world. Also, did that change qualify education system to compete other systems or not? In some examples and

Once the student knows that there is a sense of security in the classroom, a sense of guidance that exists nowhere else and in no other activity, then the actual teaching can take place. It is the basics that have helped people individually and as a country learn from the past and from mistakes. The philosophy of Essentialism could easily have the word “basics” as its key point. The word basic implies something that is stripped of everything else unnecessary and left behind and is the tool or ideas that actually work. Recently so many “extras” have been added to education

Education reform is classified as any work doing to improve schools at any level. “Education reform is any effort determined to engage what currently exists in schools” (Education Reform and Meaningful Student Involvement). Education reform is also known as school transformation or change. Education reform should include everyone at the schools including parents and students. “Research shows that for any school reform to be successful, students must be directly involved” (Weiss). This involvement of students can include