This mediocrity is linked to the foundations of our educational institutions and is spilling over into the workplace and other sectors of society. The report listed several aspects of educational decline that were evident to educators and citizens alike: lower achievement scores, lower testing requirements, lower graduation requirements, lower teacher expectations, fewer academic courses, more remedial courses, and higher illiteracy rates. (Ornstein, 2010, p. …show more content…
“The international comparisons started in the 1960’s, with the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), in areas of mathematics, involving 133,000 elementary and secondary students and 5,450 schools in twelve technologically advanced countries…Student characteristics highly correlated with achievement, and the child’s social class accounted for the greatest share of variation in learning” (Ornstein, 2010, p. 425). The economics of schooling shares this insight, “Had America been able to close the gap in science and math achievement between 1983 and 1998 and raised its performance to the level of such nations as Canada, Finland, and South Korea, the U.S. Gross Domestic Product in 1998 would have been approximately $2 trillion higher. If its achievement gap had been closed between black and Hispanic students and white and Asian students by 1998 the Gross Domestic Product in 2008 would have been about $400 to $500 Billion higher” (Ornstein, 2010, p. 426). Are we all in agreement with the academic shift? “As the Common Core “State” Standards (CCSS) become reality, teachers have reason for concern. Their autonomy and intellectual freedom to craft curriculum, tests, and assessments are relinquished and put in the hands of ‘experts’ and testing companies such as Pearson” (Wexler, 2014, p.