Opinion

Wholesale repeal of school standards bad idea

An editorial from The Herald-Dispatch

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — States and local governments on average spend about $12,000 a year for each public school student, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

So, a high school graduate can represent an investment of as much as $150,000 for 13-14 years in school.

Yet, employers complain that many of these graduates lack the math, reading and soft skills needed to fill the jobs they have available. Colleges also find many graduates are not ready to do college-level work, requiring remedial instruction before they really get started on their post- secondary education.

That educational disconnect has troubled the public for years, and it would seem that most people would agree that schools need more rigorous standards to meet the needs of the workplace and to adequately prepare students for higher education.

But as the nationwide debate over “Common Core” demonstrates, there is a lot of disagreement and confusion about school standards – what they involve or whether there should be any generally accepted standards at all…

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