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One Size Fits Few

Do the people developing state standards have any clue about kids - and why should we force Moby Dick down the throats of 15-year-olds?

By Susan Ohanian

Sometime back, a number of blue-ribbon commissions expressed concern that American kids were getting too little history. Now California produces a document showing us how to give them too much.

Here, for example, is section 1.6 of the California History/Social Science Standards:

“Students understand basic economic concepts and the role of individual choice in a free-market economy, in terms of:

1. The concept of exchange and the use of money to purchase goods and services.