A Sharp Critique of Standards-Based Reform

When Polikoff advised one state’s education leaders simply to collect data on which curricula districts were using, they protested that “district folks would freak out and assume the state was trying to usurp their authority over teaching and learning.” Students practice the skills on “leveled texts”—books on various topics that they can read easily and that may be well below their grade level. [...]that may have already happened in Florida, where the state’s new standards profess to value knowledge over reading-comprehension skills.