Current Event #2 ~ Editorials

Title: “The Case for National Standards”
Writer: Randi Weingarten (President of the American Federation of Teachers)
Source: The Washington Post
Date: Monday, February 16, 2009

As our country’s economy is spinning into a rapid decline, Randi Weingarten proposes that investing in education will be the best solution to repair the economy for the long haul. Though the borders of Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia are a mere few miles apart, their standards of education have 51 benchmarks of varying content and quality. It has become common knowledge that the U.S. is nowhere near up to par with the standards of learning of foreign countries. Weingarten insists that creating national standards would result in higher levels of achievement. It is unfair for students in states with low standards to be praised under the No Child Left Behind Act when students with rigorous standards are given low self-esteem for not receiving passing marks.

While Weingarten makes some good points, I don’t think that education should be our first priority because it won’t have and immediate positive effect. Of course raising our standards will be imperative in the future, but the government can’t afford to spare the huge amount of money that it would take to accomplish that task. We need to focus all of our attention on the stock market and the housing market so that Americans don’t end up out on the street.