It can be permanent. In addition to the effort of removing standard tests, education reforms are happening left and right. San Francisco school union recently decided to remove fast tracks. The union will also delay the teaching of geometry to grade 9, which IMHO will make teaching physics and algebra really hard.
I can understand that the motivation of such reform is to improve equity, as numerous studies have shown positive correlation between family income and testing scores. Therefore, lowering the difficulty of challenging courses and removing requirements of standard tests appear to be a natural choice towards better equity. Besides, many of us do not need advanced math or STEM in our profession anyway, why spend so much time on STEM, right?
That said, I don't see how such reform will lead to more equity. Studying and taking tests are probably the most inexpensive activities out there. All that a driven student needs to learn well is a library, a good teacher, and a few like-minded classmates. And tutoring school does not necessarily make a difference, either. But with all the reforms, what would happen? Here is what I can imagine:
- Tutoring schools will make more difference. Family with means will send their kids to
tutoring schools so their kids can learn geometry or algebra in grade 5 and have all
the time to study AP courses in high school. Who suffers? Smart kids from poor families.
Same goes for history, writing, English, and etc.
- Money will matter more. Families with means will send their kids to robotics camps,
science research labs, coding schools, professional sports coaches, and etc.
You know, things that poor families have a hard time to afford. With non-differentiating
test scores, guess what school admission officers will look at?
I really don't see how good intention in this case will help less privileged kids. Such reform is advantageous to my ids, as I'll simply send them to private schools, all kinds of camps, or tutoring schools. They will learn calculus in grade 7 or early if they are talented. They will have a bucket list of volunteering experience and so-called leadership proof in their resume. They will build their ML-powered robots or conduct their favorite chemistry/physics experiments in their private lab that I can help build, if they are interested. And in the worse case, my wife and I have no problem and plenty of time to home school my kids. Yet it still pains me to see potentially hundreds of thousands of kids who would get better chance but can't because of watered-down education.
And I'll be happy if someone could show me how wrong I am.