Article in Washington Post about how “Tea Party” is now opposing Common Core standards nationwide. Common Core is supported by a broad mostly non partisan coalition of business and government including Bill Gates foundation and the US Chamber of Commerce, and is to be implemented in 2014. Assuming Tea Party doesn’t prevail.
There’s a number of looming policy issues in the education world as it transitions to “education in the cloud”… and one can’t necessarily predict future trends without taking into account the impact of various political groups of all stripes. When there is uncertainty and great change, various political interests will find it advantageous to “stake positions” that may or may not be in the “public interest”.
Since “Learning is Everywhere” etc, and the educational “industry” is gigantic and affects almost all citizens in impactful ways, one can expect at least as much political fighting over education as we have seen in US over healthcare. Often such fighting results in policy that isn’t optimal or even necessarily rational. Here’s hoping the pace of innovation can outrun the forces of reaction of whatever political affiliation.
But given the complexity of the changes in store…from “who pays what to whom” and “who gets accreditation for what from whom”, to what regulations will control how it all is “conducted”… and considering the number of jobs and institutions “up in the air”…one can expect that the political battles will be fierce and ongoing and often enough just plain incomprehensible.