The New York Times published an editorial a couple weeks ago about the proposed national school standards. One particular section reads:
The standards, based on intensive research, reflect what students must know to succeed at college and to find good jobs in the 21st century. They are internationally benchmarked, which means that they emulate the expectations of high-performing school systems abroad.
This is not a call for a national curriculum. Rather, the proposed standards set out the skills that children should learn from kindergarten through high school. The proposals are writing-intensive and vertically aligned, building in complexity each year. The goal is to develop strong reasoning skills earlier than is now customary.
STC has regularly promoted writing in schools and this is an area of strong interest for many of our members (particularly those in the academic world). This set of standards would be, as the editorial states, “writing-intensive.”
What do you think STC’s role should be in this discussion? Would you like to see STC weigh in on the debate and speak out for a more writing-intensive national standard, or do you not see this as something within our mission?