40 years of experience. In a blog by ContraCosta Times education reporter, the teacher, Steven Weinberg writes:

Having written previously about ways education has improved in the 40 years since I began teaching, I would like to address one change that I do not believe has been beneficial: the attempt to make “content standards” the basis for everything in education.

The standards movement, which began about 20 years ago, is an effort to improve K-12 education by creating a list of content standards for each course and grade level, telling teachers exactly what needs to be taught and measuring what students have learned using tests built around those standards. California started generating these standards about 12 years ago, and now has content standards and tests for English, Math, Science, and History. These standards list between 40 and 70 things that need to be taught in each subject, each year. With 180 days in a school year, it is clear that this allows only two to four days per standard.

These standards are based on a misconception of what education is. They assume that education is like building a brick wall. If you place every brick in just the right place — that is, if you teach each standard –you end up with the finished product you desire. However, education is not just a matter of teaching 70 bits of information or skills each year. It’s about exciting students. It’s about inspiring them. It’s about awakening their individual talents and ways of looking at things that are never exactly like anyone else’s. Excellent teachers know this, and that is why many of us resist the effort to “standardized” what we do.

Read the rest of the post in Katy Murphy’s blog, The Education Report, here.