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My Big Assumption About Education

​We as a nation are committed to adequately educating EVERY child for whatever career they may choose for themselves.  We want ALL students to succeed at a high level.  We as a country want to be competitive in a global economy.  We want to continue to be a world power.  We want to continue to be a center for innovation.  We believe that people from ANY BACKGROUND can be successful, intelligent, and creative.

Implications

If we actually believe the stuff stated in my Big Assumption then we have a lot of work to do.  We need to stop focusing on "my" children, and "my" students.  Instead we need to think about what is best for everyone.  For OUR children, and OUR students.  
This means making it harder for "my" children and students.  We will be providing the best preparation to everyone, which means that "my" children and students will have more highly trained people to compete against.  

This is a huge shift.  It means abandoning the strict interpretation of Darwinism and Capitalism that we, as a country, love.  It means trading it for other interpretations.

Instead of "survival of the fittest" on an individual level, we need to move to "survival of the fittest" on a team/community level.  Taking the lessons taught in children's sports, before competition and winning becomes too important, and applying it everywhere.  As a country, we will be better off if everyone is given an incredible education.  Even if this means that MY family may not be as "successful" as they have been or would have been.

So, where did this project come from?

I feel that NGSS and CCSS were created with my big assumption in mind - that we want all students to succeed at a high level.  They are designed to ensure that EVERY student gets a quality education that focuses on DEEP learning and skill development.  They are an attempt to raise the floor, rather than lowering the bar, to graduation.

But, there are so many standards.  Very few people feel comfortable with the scope of them.  In some districts, only one person per school site is being trained in the standards or what their implications are for classroom instruction! This is the reason for this project - to make the standards accessible for ALL teachers.
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Research
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Design Process
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Support and Next Steps