Joanne Jacobs Summary:
In education, there’s little support for people who say, “That’s not good enough. Do better,” he writes. In a way , the consequences of low standards are life-threatening. But it’s not obvious until years later.
President Trump is reinstating the Presidential Fitness Test, which was discontinued in 2013 in favor of a “more holistic ‘barometer’ of student health,” he writes. In the past, “students who hit certain benchmarks got a certificate.” Not a big deal.
In a New York Times story, For Some, Return of Presidential Fitness Test Revives Painful Memories, a 60-year-old woman calls the test, “survive or fail. It was Darwinist.”
“Now, I don’t think Charles Darwin would think kids having to do pull-ups really captures the adapt-or-die essence of On the Origin of Species, writes Hess. “But this kind of overwrought anxiety has become pervasive, undermining our ability to set clear expectations for kids or confidently stand by them.”