The idea of CES sounds nice, but I wonder how it will pan out, from a systems and application standpoint. Given some of the responses in this thread re: teachers, schools, etc. being able to interpret and apply the standards, as they see fit, I still see a lot of room for discrepencies in education.
For example, one school may feel that offering science labs three times per week is the proper way to meet the CES and another only offers labs once per week. In this case, a child at the latter school will only receive one-third of the lab experience as a child in the former. Perhaps, though the child with labs only once a week will have a better grasp of the theories than the other child. Both schools are meeting the CES requirements, but doing so in different ways, however the potential for a child to be considered behind (or ahead)if they transfer schools hasn't, in my opinion, been eradicated - or in anyway reduced. And unless the schools must follow the same timeline with regard to when they teach certain standards the problem persists.
As I stated, the idea of CES sounds nice, but given the above, (granted not the best example, but hopefully it illustrates my point),I am having difficulty in seeing how having (national) CES will make a significant difference. In order for it to really work, in my opinion, I believe that it would have be in conjunction with a "national curriculum" that outlines exactly what will be taught and how and when - no skipping around , etc., because that would mean the problem with transfer students not being on the same page as a school's other students remains.
Frankly, even the *idea of a national or "common" curriculum rubs me the wrong way. And since, I don't see a plausible way to make CES work (they way I hope it would) without a common curriculum, I can't get on board with it. It's too slippy a slope, and I can see how homeschoolers would not be amenable to the idea of a CES.
I'm sure that implementing CES *without a common curriculum will have *some impact, but will it be enough to warrant the amount of legislation, systems updates, etc. that creating, implementing and monitoring a CES will entail? Until it can be proven that having a CES *without a national/common curriculum will make a significant, positive change, in conjunction with the assurance (amended into our laws in constitutional, cannot-be-voted-out-at-whim manner) that there will not and never will be "national/common curriculum", I remain firmly in the, "no thank you" camp.
