Education is actually constitutionally run at the state level in the USA...although there is a federal department of education (which is run by a moron named Betsy Devos who has deep connections to charter schools....) and there is a lot of questionable activity from this department. Some has been good, at least in theory over the decades, demanding equity and opportunities for all students no matter their disability or race...they just often will put mandates out there without fully funding them, as they do with special education funding (Look up IDEA). There's also been a bunch of federal grants or mandates coming down from the federal government in the last few administrations that have muddled the waters here even more. It crosses party lines (Race to the Top, NCLB). One of the big ones was Common Core. This was not a federal mandate but rather something that had funds associated with it states essentially had to take or they couldn't function. They technically don't "Have to" get involved with common core but it's a way to create a national curriculum without it being a legal thing to do since states are supposed to run education. Bill Gates had a big part in making this happen...and he now says it failed...anyways...rabbit hole...
I enjoyed the following you down that rabbit hole; Well, enjoyed in the sense that it's nice to learn...
Have indeed heard of it as "no child left behind". - Heard a lot about lacking funding as well in the past.
I think standardisation is a bit of a double-edged sword at times. It has clear benefits, like meaning everyone can be compared on the same basis. But it also decreases flexibility for the professionals, i.e. teachers to judge the best way of handling certain situations - For example, I think we can probably agree that having a completely standardised schedule for everything a teacher should go through every single day wouldn't be good, as it leaves no manoeuvrability to accommodate the needs of the students, like spending more time on subjects that are particularly hard for the class, or engaging students who pick up things faster with, to them, more interesting concepts. But some standardisation is likely necessary as well - I don't really have any answers as to the best structure for all of it, but it is rather interesting.
I personally very much like the system we have here in Denmark, but I doubt it would be much liked in America, and it is surely not the only good system; And of course it too has its flaws - but I think it's safe to say there is room for improvement
Interesting point with Gates. I've never been a particularly big fan of Microsoft, but Gates has undoubtably done a lot of good. Whilst the Common Core project failed, I hope for the future betterment of everyone involved in the education sector - For America, and for that matter the rest of the world was well, since almost anything can be improved
There is no requirement for a college or university to consider SATs or ACT in admissions. Most just did and schools generally used it as their Junior (3rd year of HS) level standardized exam to meet the requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act (the previous incarnation was No Child Left Behind - you may have heard of it with that name). Collegeboard has a very inappropriate connection with Pearson, a for-profit company (whom I think just changed their name to SAVVIS or something in fact recently). They basically run standardized testing in the US and own a big part of the textbook industry which dictates the curriculum that prepares kids for the tests... It's big money and scammy all around. Tech c
I seem to have written some of my response to that quote in my previous paragraph by mistake, I hope you'll excuse me for not bothering to sort it out this time since it got a bit long and intertwined
I do have a lot of textbooks from Pearson though. In fact, some of my professors have had their books published through Pearson - I wasn't aware they did more than just books and auxiliary material learning material though.
We've never really had our curriculums bound by the textbooks though - Some teachers (mostly those who've written it themselves) will follow it, but many others will just take a chapter here and there as suggested reading, but offer many more avenues for learning material - often self-made PDF documents.
In any case, there's nothing inherently wrong in having for-profit involved in education on some tiers I think - Like textbooks and material. But if they have inappropriate connections with the Collegeboard, begin more or less dictating curriculums and being solely responsible for testing without external audits or involvement of teachers actively teaching at schools, it seems more problematic to me.
