But the quality of the standards has a long way to go. One of the problems of state standards, as well as many others, is that when you get a group of people together . . . The result is you get standards that simply can't be taught in the time that's available to teach them. So the teacher is once again left with the choice of what to teach. Another problem is that for most of these standards there is not a good balance among the basic skills, conceptual understanding and applications.
Conceptual understanding is really important because . . .
You really have to understand the subject and not just memorize the definitions, algorithms and do procedures. Probably the most serious problem with the standard is that they're not performance standards. Q. You propose eliminating comprehensive high schools, which offer a wide range of activities and programs, from preschools, nurseries, band and sports to drivers' education and programs in prevention of violence, substance abuse and pregnancies. People have asked the comprehensive high schools to be almost everything to almost everybody. Given the demands of modern work, it is pretty clear that a serious professional and technical program of instruction requires highly skilled teachers and specialized equipment in one area of instruction after another.