My background includes music education, piano performance, and composition. Naturally then, I value creative expression, arts education, independent thinking, emotive eloquence expressed through nuanced abstraction, the creation of beauty in the many different forms it can take in our human experience. Such achievements require far more than merely knowing the parts: "Boys and girls this is what an eighth note looks like."

Certainly, learners must know the parts. But as I often say, "Music is not about the notes. Math isn't about the numbers and symbols. Literature isn't about words and parts of speech." For those children whose educational experiences were not providing them with the basics upon which they could build understanding, appreciation, complex meaning and the beauty of expression, then standards-focused accountability for their teachers may have been a logical remediation. But how many teachers in our country didn't provide their students with a quality basic education? Every single one of them, as the national standards movement and NCLB seem to indicate?

Our educator friends in Canada still value the liberal arts education, still view the purpose of education as vastly extending beyond "global competitiveness." Working with them is so refreshing.

Placing value on diversity isn't just about ethnicity. Of great and equal importance is diversity of thought, ideas, and expression. I shudder to think what the long term outcome of standards-based education will be. It actually frightens me for the future of democracy, creativity, curiosity, independent thought...

Alfie Kohn's entire article is important reading. Quoted below, from the extended version of the January 14, 2010, Education Week article by Alfie Kohn, are some concluding thoughts from the article.

Finally, what’s the purpose of demanding that every kid in every school in every state must be able to do the same thing in the same year, with teachers pressured to “align” their instruction to a master curriculum and a standardized test?

I once imagined a drinking game in which a few of those education reform papers from corporate groups and politicians were read aloud: You take a shot every time you hear “rigorous,” “measurable,” “accountable,” “competitive,” “world-class,” “high(er) expectations,” or “raising the bar.” Within a few minutes, everyone would be so inebriated that they’d no longer be able to recall a time when discussions about schooling weren’t studded with these macho managerial buzzwords.

But it took me awhile to figure out that not all jargon is meaningless. Those words actually have very real implications for what classrooms should look like and what education is (and isn’t) all about.

The goal clearly isn’t to nourish children’s curiosity, to help them fall in love with reading and thinking, to promote both the ability and the disposition to think critically, or to support a democratic society. Rather, a prescription for uniform, specific, rigorous standards is made to order for those whose chief concern is to pump up the American economy and make sure that we triumph over people who live in other countries.

If you read the FAQ page on the common core standards website, don’t bother looking for words like “exploration,” “intrinsic motivation,” “developmentally appropriate,” or “democracy.” Instead, the very first sentence contains the phrase “success in the global economy,” followed immediately by “America’s competitive edge.”

If these bright new digitally enhanced national standards are more economic than educational in their inspiration, more about winning than learning, devoted more to serving the interests of business than to meeting the needs of kids, then we’ve merely painted a 21st-century façade on a hoary, dreary model of school as employee training. Anyone who recoils from that vision should be doing everything possible to resist a proposal for national standards that embodies it.

Yes, we want excellent teaching and learning for all -- although our emphasis should be less on student achievement (read: test scores) than on students’ achievements. ... "

[Source: Debunking the Case for National Standards: One-Size-Fits-All Mandates and Their Dangers. Copyright © 2010 by Alfie Kohn. This article may be downloaded, reproduced, and distributed without permission as long as each copy includes this notice along with citation information (i.e., name of the periodical in which it originally appeared, date of publication, and author's name). Permission must be obtained in order to reprint this article in a published work or in order to offer it for sale in any form. Please write to the address indicated on the Contact Us page.]