"A nation should require all its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college rather than allow schools in different parts of the nation to determine which academic courses to offer."
The speaker asserts that a nation should require all its students to study the same national curriculum till they enter college, defying reginal and personal differences.
Admittedly, a national curriculum may be less costly because schools, teachers, and textbooks across a nation can be standardized, reducing the time and money needed to develop a more diverse pool of courses. Students and families may also benefit from a more equalized education system, where children from rich and poor families learn the same things. However, I must point out that a compulsory national curriculum has many shortcomings, and we should allow schools and students to have more freedom in selecting courses.
First, regional differences play a huge role in course selection, especially in countries that have vast territories, such as the United States, China, and Russia. Simply put, one cannot expect children from the polar region to catch butterflies or make lizzard specimens in field trips. People from a certain region know what is best for them, so instead of having someone thousands of miles away making all the decisions, the local authority, schools, and students themselves can make better and more practical choices.
Secondly, people have different plans and goals for themselves: they want to be scientists, businesspeople, artists, athelets, etc. Imposing an universal curriculum would substantially compromise their ability to get the kind of education that works best for them. Specialization is very important because each role needs a certain set of skills, so limiting the diversity in school curriculums would inevitably lead to worse scientists, artists, athelets, etc., compared to other countries whose education systems are more reasonable.
Admittedly, a core curriculum is desirable because we want the students to have sufficient knowledge in a collection of fields so that they will not be completely ignorant in the subjects they do not like. This is why I believe a combination of national core curriculum and additional selective courses is a better choice.
In sum, forcing all schools to use the same national curriculum may be counter-productive. Doing so would be similar to forcing the entire population to watch the same television show or eating the same food, which is absurd. Diversity and specialization in curriculums are needed and students deserve to have a certain degree of freedom in choosing what they learn.
Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 142, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...eople, artists, athelets, etc. Imposing an universal curriculum would substantiall...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, kind of, of course, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.5258426966 72% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.4196629213 105% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 14.8657303371 108% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 11.3162921348 71% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 33.0505617978 64% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 58.6224719101 67% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 12.9106741573 70% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2081.0 2235.4752809 93% => OK
No of words: 383.0 442.535393258 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.43342036554 5.05705443957 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.42384287591 4.55969084622 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01100880344 2.79657885939 108% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 215.323595506 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.563968668407 0.4932671777 114% => OK
syllable_count: 639.9 704.065955056 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 6.24550561798 32% => OK
Article: 4.0 4.99550561798 80% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 3.10617977528 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.77640449438 225% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.38483146067 23% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 20.2370786517 74% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 25.0 23.0359550562 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.9559604547 60.3974514979 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.733333333 118.986275619 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.5333333333 23.4991977007 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.66666666667 5.21951772744 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 4.97078651685 121% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 7.80617977528 13% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 10.2758426966 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 5.13820224719 19% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.83258426966 83% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.298272470655 0.243740707755 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.10615587237 0.0831039109588 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109811505208 0.0758088955206 145% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.179781337951 0.150359130593 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.131284079259 0.0667264976115 197% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.9 14.1392134831 120% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.8420337079 77% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.92365168539 141% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.1743820225 117% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.51 12.1639044944 119% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.88 8.38706741573 106% => OK
difficult_words: 97.0 100.480337079 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 11.8971910112 126% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.2143820225 107% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.7820224719 127% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 142, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...eople, artists, athelets, etc. Imposing an universal curriculum would substantiall...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, kind of, of course, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.5258426966 72% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.4196629213 105% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 14.8657303371 108% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 11.3162921348 71% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 33.0505617978 64% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 58.6224719101 67% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 12.9106741573 70% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2081.0 2235.4752809 93% => OK
No of words: 383.0 442.535393258 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.43342036554 5.05705443957 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.42384287591 4.55969084622 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01100880344 2.79657885939 108% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 215.323595506 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.563968668407 0.4932671777 114% => OK
syllable_count: 639.9 704.065955056 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 6.24550561798 32% => OK
Article: 4.0 4.99550561798 80% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 3.10617977528 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.77640449438 225% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.38483146067 23% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 20.2370786517 74% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 25.0 23.0359550562 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.9559604547 60.3974514979 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.733333333 118.986275619 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.5333333333 23.4991977007 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.66666666667 5.21951772744 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 4.97078651685 121% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 7.80617977528 13% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 10.2758426966 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 5.13820224719 19% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.83258426966 83% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.298272470655 0.243740707755 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.10615587237 0.0831039109588 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109811505208 0.0758088955206 145% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.179781337951 0.150359130593 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.131284079259 0.0667264976115 197% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.9 14.1392134831 120% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.8420337079 77% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.92365168539 141% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.1743820225 117% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.51 12.1639044944 119% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.88 8.38706741573 106% => OK
difficult_words: 97.0 100.480337079 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 11.8971910112 126% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.2143820225 107% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.7820224719 127% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.