The Politics of National Standards

Abstract

Public education in the United States is essentially a political enterprise. The content and administration of public schooling are dependent on citizens' tax dollars determined by elected city and state officials and on policies fashioned by elected school boards and appointed state officials. Unfortunately, the politics of education is mostly ignored by educators, parents, students-and the general public. Our educational body politic suffers from tunnel vision. We consider educational ideas, programs, and reform movements mainly from a conceptual basis with no other societal links. In short, for many educators it is a case of education for education's sake.