Stephen Downes

According to California's Grade 11 and 12 Language Arts standard, "by grade twelve, students read two million words annually on their own." What is magic, asks the author, about two million words? And even more to the point, how does such a number take into account the individual needs of students? "It assumes that everybody needs to know exactly the same things in exactly the same proportions." In other words, it turns education into a commodity, like toasters or black Fords. Good discussion, and be sure to read the comments, as Jim Ellsworth replies, "the real standards–the ones enforced by the world - are going to be one size fits all. They won’t care about students’ individual differences: if you don’t have the competencies, you won’t get the job."