Ravitch begins by addressing how “accountability” and “choice” were at the heart of NCLB. What students should learn was left for each state. She initially saw potential in NCLB but with time she realized how curriculum and standard were not important and that its vision was not to improve the quality of education by learning but to “Measure, then punish or reward”. The curriculum is important for educating students by letting them think, debate and question. In the event of the history standards being abandoned, Ravitch realized that the subject of standards, curriculum and content had become “radioactive” to the political leaders and everyone had given up. When Clinton’s administration’s Goals 2000 program gave federal money to states to develop their own standards, the curriculum contents were vague because they had learned that it was best if they said nothing and changed nothing.…show more content… She admired its recommended reforms as they seemed reasonable, visionary and attainable. She contrasts ANAR with NCLB by saying that ANAR was a report while NCLB was a federal law; failure to comply with it would have serious consequences. ANAR focused on strengthening the curriculum while NCLB focused on measuring success based off standardized test scores. ANAR had a vision of good education as the foundation while NCLB only envisioned rising scores. ANAR wanted to produce educated citizens and impart knowledge by improving the quality of test books, spending more time on homework’s, etc. while NCLB only produced data and gave no importance to
