A NATIONAL EDUCATION PLAN

I believe there should be a national information bank of lesson plans and
units in all content areas.  Communities could then use these units as-is or
modify them as they see fit.  The units should cover all content areas and
incorporate best practices.  Such an initiative would head-off the political
infighting that would inevitably occur if the Dept. of Education were to
impose a national curriculum on the populace; yet it would also allow
districts around the country to quickly and easily adopt an array of units
that would fit their students’ needs.  

I recommend that the US Dept. of Education form curriculum writing
committees for early childhood curricula, upper elementary curricula, middle
school curricula, high school curricula, and college preparatory curricula.  
I also recommend the formation of an alignment committee to interface with
all the others.  This committee would ensure that the content and critical
thinking strategies of each curriculum builds upon those taught at previous
levels.  This will allow communities to adopt(should they choose to do so) a
complete soup-to-nuts, grade-by-grade curriculum.  We would have, thus, a
National Curriculum that is available but not imposed on individual
communities.  

As for No Child Left Behind: We shouldn’t throw out the baby with the
bathwater.  I’m no fan of 24/7 test prep; but NCLB has led communities to
identify research-based intervention programs that have a track record of
success. Some of these programs have effective systems of data collection,
allowing for meaningful differentiation of instruction. This is much better
than the blind and hysterical test preparation now plaguing the nation.  The
Dept. of Education should find a way to enable every state to purchase some
of these programs at very low cost–or at no cost.  Additionally, the Summer
2008 edition of the Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literacy (JAAL) provides
a review of several reading interventions.  The interventions outlined in
this edition should be included in the programs made available across the
country.

Tags: education, Obama