we have increasingly held the view that education is a private good, which should serve the individual interests of educational consumers, rather than a public good, which should serve the broader public interest in producing competent citizens and productive workers. First, consider our traditional commitment to preserving local control. The core issue here is the wide and deep strain of libertarian sentiment that lies at the heart of the American psyche. The urge to preserve individual liberty is a key to understanding American society, and it is what defines our distinctive approach to politics, economics, and education. Don''t tell me what to do" has long been our national slogan. By it we have meant in particular that government should keep off our backs -- especially government physicslessonplans that is far removed from our local community. All you need to do is remember that this nation was born of an uprising

currently so strong that physicslessonplans it may well leave a number of listeners wondering why such an obviously needed and beneficial reform wasn''t undertaken a long time ago. But the fact is that the effort to physicslessonplans establish educational standards has always been an uphill fight in this country. In light of these circumstances, it is useful to examine why Americans have so vigorously resisted educational standards over the years. The history of such resistance suggests that there are three factors in particular that have made standards such a hard sell: a commitment to local control of schools, a commitment to expansion of educational opportunity, and a commitment to form over substance in the way we think about educational accomplishment. All three of these factors, which I treat below, physicslessonplans can be traced in large part to our preference for one particular purpose of education:

©2003 www.science-teaching.com All rights reserved.