VOA标准英语2011--Should All Students in US Learn the Same

Education Report - Should All Students in US Learn the Same Things?

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
More than forty of the fifty American states have approved what are known as the common core state standards. These are lists of content that students are supposed to learn at each grade level from kindergarten to high school.
State governors and schools chiefs led the effort to develop the standards. The project involved teachers, administrators¹, experts and public comments. The final standards were released last June.
Acceptance is voluntary. But acceptance helped states that entered President Obama's four-billion-dollar "Race to the Top" competition for school reform.
The standards are for English language arts and math. More subjects may come later.
Supporters say the standards provide clear goals to prepare students to succeed in college and in jobs. But critics of national standards say the idea goes against one of America's oldest traditions -- local control of education.
Political conservatives generally oppose federal intervention² in schools. Yet it was a Republican president, George W. Bush, who expanded testing requirements to show that public schools are making yearly progress.
Still, opponents of national standards call them "one-size-fits-all." They say the idea does not make sense for a country as large and diverse as the United States.
One of those opponents is Bill Evers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. He was an assistant education secretary under President Bush.
BILL EVERS: "We are having Washington, DC, having control and final say over, and supervision³ over and direction over, what is happening in the classrooms of America, in the public schools. Most changes, most positive influences have bubbled up from below.
"So it's closing the door on innovation by locking in a national, uniform bureaucratic⁴ system. But the states don’t have a problem in setting their curriculum -- they’ve been doing it ever since there've been public schools.”
Richard Reilly was education secretary to President Bill Clinton, a Democrat⁵. Mr. Reilly says the federal government is not forcing the common core standards on states.
RICHARD REILLY: "Conservatives would be concerned if we had federal-mandated common core standards. That’s not what we have. It’s a state-driven measure. High standards, challenging work for young people across the country. To be challenged to do and be the same, and not one way in Texas and another way in South Carolina."
Mr. Reilly says when he served in the nineteen nineties, he pushed states to develop their own statewide standards. But some of those standards were not very strong, he says, so he believes national standards are needed.
But Bill Evers says technology now makes it easier to develop individual learning plans to meet the different needs of students.
BILL EVERS: "If we put a bureaucratic hand on this, we will stifle⁶ the capacity for modern technology to give us a better shot at the students learning the material."
He says schools should worry less about a common curriculum and more about improving teacher quality.
And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report. We'll have more about this debate next week. You can find a link to the common core standards at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Christopher Cruise.

1 administrators   

n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 )；有管理（或行政）才能的人；（由遗嘱检验法庭指定的）遗产管理人；奉派暂管主教教区的牧师

参考例句：

• He had administrators under him but took the crucial decisions himself. 他手下有管理人员，但重要的决策仍由他自己来做。 来自辞典例句
• Administrators have their own methods of social intercourse. 办行政的人有他们的社交方式。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

2 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

3 supervision   

n.监督，管理

参考例句：

• The work was done under my supervision.这项工作是在我的监督之下完成的。
• The old man's will was executed under the personal supervision of the lawyer.老人的遗嘱是在律师的亲自监督下执行的。

4 bureaucratic   

adj.官僚的，繁文缛节的

参考例句：

• The sweat of labour washed away his bureaucratic airs.劳动的汗水冲掉了他身上的官气。
• In this company you have to go through complex bureaucratic procedures just to get a new pencil.在这个公司里即使是领一支新铅笔，也必须通过繁琐的手续。

5 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

6 stifle   

vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止

参考例句：

• She tried hard to stifle her laughter.她强忍住笑。
• It was an uninteresting conversation and I had to stifle a yawn.那是一次枯燥无味的交谈，我不得不强忍住自己的呵欠。