A nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position

Nations should allow local school boards and school districts to set their own curriculum, while also requiring each district to set and meet an appropriately rigorous curriculum. I disagree that a national curriculum is necessary for primary and secondary education.

Primarily, control of curriculum decisions should be allocated to regional bodies so that local differences can be taken into account. For instance, history and political science courses could address local politics and local history and give students opportunities for civic engagement. Students should be able to study and discuss issues at play in their own communities, especially during election seasons. Science courses could also take advantage of local differences through active study of wildlife, geology, and weather patterns. For example, a science unit could be based around taking measurements of humidity and temperature and comparing with historical data. Additionally, a physical science curriculum could include observation of fossils, vegetation, and landforms commonly found around the students' own homes. This direct application of curriculum to life can only enhance student retention of the material and is superior to studying only the geology and politics prescribed within a national curriculum.

Additionally, curriculums chosen at the local level can also include units with cross-curricular studies and opportunities for field trips. For instance, a middle school curriculum in Lawrence, Kansas could have a unit focusing on regional effects of the civil war, including border wars with Missouri, the burning of Lawrence, and populist laws in Kansas. Students could visit local history museums and the home of activist John Brown in order to see the history come to life and crystallize their learning. Alternatively, a middle school curriculum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania would likely rely heavily on famous historical sites and documents of the United States' founding fathers. Field trips allow students to walk the very steps of the constitutional congress and can inspire projects based on political history and biographies. Of course, middle schoolers throughout the nation would all study both the civil war and the founding of the United States at some point, the emphasis can be flavored by regional differences and access to historically important sites.

Superintendents and school boards should be trusted to develop appropriate, rigorous, effective curriculum for the schools within their control. Currently, in the United States, each state has it's own state testing protocol and timeline. Educational leaders need autonomy to ensure students are prepared for these state exams and they should be trusted to shift resources based on student needs. It is possible that in one state, math scores are high and students need a more robust literature curriculum with more time dedicated to fiction and non-fiction. Another state may see strong literacy and phonics scores yet have graduates with deficient mathematical and trade abilities. Each of these states would choose to improve student outcomes with different priorities in the curriculum and they should be given the opportunity to do so at a local level.

While a national curriculum would be too restrictive to ensure the best student outcomes across a large nation, having a national conversation about educational standards and solutions is ideal. The Common Core is valuable in that it gives clear targets for each grade level so no state lags far behind in expectations. These national standards should be available while laws should ultimately give states and school boards final control over their full curriculum. There has been a recent trend toward online schooling available to all as public education. Despite extensive oversight, it is still possible for these students to spend very little time studying, to easily fall behind without notice, and to lack social competence and social learning provided in a traditional school setting. However, a national curriculum would not necessarily solve this, and high expectations and audits would prove to be more effective.

In conclusion, a national curriculum should not be required. Instead, state educational institutions and local school boards should have the responsibility and the autonomy to make decisions for students based on regional differences and evaluation of student needs.