ISSUE PROMPT: Social and Political

A nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college. 

Do you agree or disagree?  Explain your reasoning.  Describe specific circumstances in which adopting this position would be good or bad.  Explain how those examples relate to your position.

Nations should stipulate for all students the same national curriculum until they enter college.  Standards for education imposed at a national level ensure that all students are integrated into communal life, while minimizing the costs of having to do so.  Furthermore, national curriculums prepare students for advancement into specializations, which they can obtain at a college level; and lower the costs of college education since successful graduates of the national curriculum will not need remedial education.  This essay will argue each of the above points. 

Adopting a national curriculum is the best way to ensure that successful graduates share a common frame of reference for discussing matters of shared interest.  For instance, imagine what the world would be like if only some students were taught the quantitative skills of addition and subtraction, division and multiplication.  Basic economic decision-making would be challenging for these students.  They would know neither whether they overpaid at the cash register nor whether they had the necessary amount of money to complete the transaction.  Surely, a common frame of reference taught according to the standards of a national curriculum is a requirement for participation in one foundation of communal life: exchange. 

One common objection to the demand that schools teach according to a national curriculum up until college is that not all students have the same interests nor do they all want to attend college.  Nevertheless, this objection must be ignored on the grounds that were mentioned earlier.   All proponents of national curriculums agree that exchange is a basic necessity of communal life.  Therefore, it is obvious that this skill will serve as a foundation for the national curriculum.  Furthermore, even in the case that student’s interests diverge from the national curriculum, they, and the colleges that may eventually serve them, will do well to uphold the stipulated standards; since, on the one hand, students may change their minds about their aspirations, and in the case that they do, colleges will not need to provide remedial content. 

Now, since colleges will not be charged with the task of providing remedial content to the incoming freshmen, who will do the job of providing the content in the first place? The answer to this question is simple: pre-college teachers.  And one benefit of imposing a national curriculum would be that these teachers would know exactly what was expected of them in their classrooms.  Since teachers know their expectations, they can tailor their lesson plans to this material.  Imagine what some idiosyncratic teachers might decide to teach without a national curriculum.  Students might walk from a class on math having learned about the teacher’s pet theories in theoretical numbers!  Obviously, national curriculum provides a sure way to side step that problem.

Finally, a national curriculum would lower the costs associated with running a public educational system since schools would have collective bargaining powers with the companies that manufacture their supplies and they would need to employee fewer specialists to cater to the eccentric tastes of peculiar students.

Although, national curriculums require work to develop, adults now owe future generations the respect to devise these standards and uphold them in practice.


(This issue prompt is very weak.  I haven't been working on my analytic writing lately.  I need to figure out to to improve!!!)