This article is the third of three on "Sources of Authority in Education." All use the work of Amy Gutmann as a heuristic device to describe and explain the prevalence of market-based models of education reform in the US and the business-influenced Global Education Reform Movement. The other two are "Negating Amy Gutmann:…

A history of the achievement levels for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) could be documented in different ways. A chronological history might be the obvious approach, but in the author's view, that could miss the most salient aspects of setting student performance standards on an assessment like NAEP. Further, new initiatives…

Instead of perpetuating a macroeconomic labor-exchange model, educators must discover how to promote individual career planning for everyone. If each person has one lifelong career, we must help people get and keep jobs, while helping them plan future worklives and balance work roles and responsibilities with other life roles. (22 references) (MLH)

In response to the critical need for geographical knowledge, educators and concerned stakeholders have built a national consensus regarding content standards in "Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994." The 18 standards for grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12 specify the essential knowledge, skills, and perspectives that students…

Although one national goal proposes that all Americans will have all knowledge necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise citizenship responsibility, others fail to explain how children incarcerated in standards-driven schools will make sense of the world. The microsociety school approach radically recontextualizes in-school learning by…

Summarizes research reports that discuss students' ignorance about U.S. government, document modest progress toward Goals 2000 objectives, suggest changing and/or limiting school boards' roles, enumerate major societal threats to children, and reveal parents' lack of knowledge about charter schools and vouchers. (MLH)

America is too diverse and teachers, parents, and community members are too skeptical to buy a one-size-fits-all curriculum. Four goals should drive reform: education for a changing economy, for continuing learning, for citizenship, and for personal growth and health. Governments, colleges, businesses, and the media have important supportive…