Set­ting the bar for Amer­i­can pub­lic edu­ca­tion has been an ongo­ing topic in this coun­try, and right­fully so. From the overused com­par­i­son to for­eign coun­tries that far exceed our math, sci­ence and lan­guage edu­ca­tion to the over­whelm­ing crit­i­cism about No Child Left Behind, this topic sim­ply won't go away.

Last week, a group of state school super­in­ten­dents, gov­er­nors and edu­ca­tors jointly pro­posed the Com­mon Core State Stan­dards Ini­tia­tive (CCSSI), a new cri­te­ria for Amer­i­can K-12 pub­lic school­ing in math and Eng­lish, to include such require­ments as lit­er­ary analy­sis for 5th graders and a heav­ier focus on logic for 7th grade math. Today, the New York Times noted that CCSSI may bring about text­book rewrites, new train­ing meth­ods for teach­ers and a sec­ond look at how stan­dard­ized tests oper­ate in Amer­ica, among other changes. How­ever, the arti­cle notes that some states' pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tems aren't as bad as the rest of the coun­try, and they may be hes­i­tant to change what's already work­ing for them. While these are not federally-ordered stan­dards by any means, the group hopes to gar­ner enough cred­i­bil­ity to get states to jump on board sim­ply because of merit.

Over­all, I think this ini­tia­tive is great, as it's a clear demon­stra­tion of action on the part of a lot of hot air that's spewn about U.S. pub­lic edu­ca­tion short­com­ings. Plus, CCSSI has not yet been final­ized in order to give the pub­lic the oppor­tu­nity to com­ment and give feed­back on the new stan­dards via the Coun­cil of Chief State School Offi­cers' and National Gov­er­nors Association's websites.

How­ever… I'll start by sound­ing off here. What about imple­ment­ing real-world skills into core cur­ricu­lum classes for K-12 stu­dents, such as com­plet­ing your taxes? Surely those ana­lyt­i­cal skills, logic and problem-solving capa­bil­i­ties . Or how about get­ting a mort­gage? Under­stand­ing dense text among mounds and mounds of paper­work is crit­i­cal to sur­viv­ing as an edu­cated adult in a bureau­cratic soci­ety, and our pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem should pre­pare stu­dents for adult life using the same skills already being learned in math and English–among other–classes.

The bar for pub­lic edu­ca­tion needs to be raised, yes. But I sug­gest tak­ing it one step higher to increase the rel­e­vancy of what stu­dents are learn­ing in the first place.