For the last two weeks, Teachers College doctoral student Alexander Hoffman has been enumerating the problems with national standards. Today, he arrives at his big finish: If standards are unrealistic, disconnected from the classroom, and necessarily limited in scope, why bother with them at all?
Here’s one explanation Hoffman suggests:
Politicians and public leaders want to do something, and probably want to be seen as doing something, so they do what they can, even if what they can do is worthless.