SCHOOLS AND SOCIETY

Schools and Society

Schools and Society

It is one of the core purposes of education to support social standards for the benefit of society at large. Although this poses some real difficulties in a plural society, I believe - optimist that I am - that there is still much that schools can achieve in this area.

The Oxford Dictionary of English defines standard as: 'A thing or quality or specification by which something may be tested.' This means that there must be a paradigm that schools can draw on to teach their students the things that constitute good manners. This gives us a difficulty because… there is not one.

Florida and National Standards

With little discussion, the Florida Board of Education voted unanimously this morning to adopt the Common Core Standards for reading/language arts and math.

Florida joins more than two dozen other states in adopting the K-12 standards, which were released last month after a year-long development process directed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

The state's current standards aren't too shabby, according to the Fordham Institute, which put out a report last week comparing state standards with the Common Core Standards. Florida, in fact, was one of only four states to earn an A for its math standards, and it earned a B for its English/language arts standards.

But education leaders in Florida and other states say rigorous, common standards will make the country more competitive with the rest of the world. They're also motivated by Race to the Top, which awards points for adopting them.

"This approval marks a vital next step on Florida's long-standing and successful eduation reform journey by strengthening our curriculum standards for these critical subjects," Board of Education Chairman T. Willard Smith said in a statement. "I look forward to seeing ...