I have restored my interest in skeptical blogging on education and humanities. I just needed a good little while to get enough stuff done to have something to write about.

“It will sometimes strike a scientific man that the philosophers have been less intent on finding out what the facts are, than on inquiring what belief is most in harmony with their system.” -Charles Sanders Peirce

Which brings me to today’s post. Living In Dialogue has blogged about how the National Governor’s Association has set-up a council for new national standards that literally only includes one teacher and will be kept completely confidential until it is complete.

Now the other shoe has dropped. On Wednesday, the NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released their plan for developing national standards for Mathematics and English.

They propose a process that will result in new national K-12 standards by next December, and launched a new website where we can watch the magic unfold. They also released the names of those on the Mathematics and English “Work Groups” that will draft the standards, and the “Feedback Groups” who will advise them once drafts have been offered. We are informed that “The Work Group’s deliberations will be confidential throughout the process.” As far as public input, “States and national education organizations will have an opportunity to review and provide evidence-based feedback on the draft documents throughout the process.” There does not appear to be any avenue for the public at large, students, parents or teachers to provide direct input.

So who makes up the two Work Groups? Of the 25 individuals on the two teams, (four people are on both) six are associated with the test-makers from the College Board, five are with fellow test-publishers ACT, and four are with Achieve. Zero teachers are on either Work Group. The Feedback Groups have 35 participants, almost all of whom are university professors. There appears to be exactly one classroom teacher involved in the entire process, on one of the Feedback Groups.

Now if that isn’t bad enough, look who the people are ACT and the College Board who make standardized tests are setting the standards. While I understand wanting to keep interests out of the situation and stop a lobbying fiasco, there is a clear conflict of interest in turning the various private testing boards into such power blocks. Furthermore the push to send everyone into some sort of credentialing has increased. Georgia’s Work Ready program is already using a test designed by the ACT to certify people for work.

We can’t be fairly skeptical or positively evaluate these standards, because they are matters of trade-secret.

I actually think national standards are a necessity, but I do not think literally teaching to the test by having the private test-makers set the standards is a smart way to do this NOR is something the most successful educating nations do like Finland or Canada. I also don’t think everyone who goes through a secondary school needs to be college bound.

And besides teachers, parents, and children, why aren’t more NOT partial cognitive sciences and education researchers who aren’t tied to a test-making body included? In fact, I think the later are more important than the former.

Another thing that bothers me is that this continues to ignore science education and the boarder humanities, BOTH are suffering severely under the current focus. Science literacy is key for many areas of life and its omission is truly tragic.

Why do politicians and testing-organizations get all the power? I think the obvious answer is that they already have it and don’t want to give it up. For those who thought that perhaps most sensible or a more inclusive view of education may come out of the Obama era or the state governors, I think we still have every reason to be skeptical.