Why have public schools anyway? We’ve all heard the answer: Public schools are the engine of our economy, the cornerstone of our democracy, and the avenue for individuals to achieve their dreams.
This list of goals sounds like mere rhetoric, but these three goals are worth thinking about. The first observation worth making about these three goals is that we don’t get to choose; we need to do all three. Second, though reformers like to emphasize the ways that these three purposes overlap, these three purposes also pull us in different directions. This means that when educators start to implement something, they are always doing a balancing act. That’s okay, and in fact puts education in the mainstream in this nation, which has found great strength in finding ways to balance opposing forces. But it’s never easy, and it might help if we admitted it.
via Common Core will falter if global competitiveness is sole goal – by Merrill Vargo.