On Centralization

Larry Cuban's teacher blog, which often discusses historical trends in teaching, notes the context of the Common Core at Competing Traditions of Teaching: An Old Story Written Anew | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Since the early 1990s, however, states have embraced standards-based reforms, accountability measures, and mandated testing peaking with No Child Left Behind in 2001. How, then, in the past two accountability-driven decades have most teachers organized instruction, grouped students, and taught lessons?

For those who listen to teachers, the answer is self-evident. Classroom stories and teacher surveys have reported again and again that more lesson time is spent preparing students for high-stakes tests. And what is taught has narrowed to what appears on tests.

Such stories and surveys describe classroom instruction, particularly in largely poor and minority schools, as more teacher-centered, focused on meeting prescribed state standards and raising test scores. Teachers have felt pressured to drop student-centered activities such as small group work, discussions, learning centers, and writing portfolios because such activities take away precious classroom time from standards-based curriculum and test preparation.

I think this is in line with Yong Zhao's discussion; centralization (and the high-stakes testing which holds it together) tends to conflict with letting students develop as self-directed learners/citizens.

Or then again, maybe not.