What Should the Department of Education Do?(educationprogress.org)
educationprogress.org
What Should the Department of Education Do?
https://www.educationprogress.org/p/what-should-the-department-of-education
4 comments
Dissolve.
Am I missing something, or does this article spend hundreds of words pushing a "pro-excellence" plan without ever defining what they mean by excellence? It's hard to see how a dictionary definition ("the quality of being outstanding or extremely good") is useful for differentiating their success metrics from those of other stakeholders; so taking the steel man reading that this is a term of art and not just a meaningless label, a domain-specific definition for those of us less familiar in the art would be appreciated.
In K-12 education, there are two opposing views related to individual student achievement:
A) 'pro-excellence': raise the ceiling, aim to maximize the realization of human potential.
B) 'pro-equity': raise the floor, narrow the 'achievement gap' at all costs, including lowering the ceiling.
Viewpoint B is what guides much of district-level education policy in the US.
A) 'pro-excellence': raise the ceiling, aim to maximize the realization of human potential.
B) 'pro-equity': raise the floor, narrow the 'achievement gap' at all costs, including lowering the ceiling.
Viewpoint B is what guides much of district-level education policy in the US.