This GERM is seriously infectious...

The Global Educational Reform Movement is an international phenomenon that is damaging  kids and education systems wherever (largely first world) politicians have managed to contrive to get it to take hold.

  Here's a good example of the Aussie version - they are a few years ahead of us in the GERM infection process - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1bhx3H5Qic&safe=active 

.... and here are two clips from Finnish expert Pasi Stahlberg - from Finland (not unsurprisingly) - the country at the top of OECD rankings; the country that has consciously retained the student-centred model that most OECD politicians have destroyed in their own jurisdictions: http://www.youtube.com/watch...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdgS--9Zg_0&safe=active

Meantime: here's the take of a long-time critic of National Standards; the redoubtable Kelvin Smythe http://www.networkonnet.co.nz/index.php?section=latest... 

Hidden inside the inevitable political spin - these are dangerous times (again!) for the future quality of education - is that what's happening now is the real reason National Standards were established.