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The political declaration, which I recommend other people to read.“A compromise is not inconceivable. I have heard a German official say that the EU might accept provisions that are 'equivalent' to dynamic alignment without it being that. Both sides would have to be willing to eat fudge.”Charles Grant, Centre for European Reform, 18 February 2020Section 17 refers of political declaration commitment to a level playing field which respects the European Union’s single market and custom union. In the introduction, part 3 refers to “a comprehensive and balanced Free Trade Agreement.” Part 74 of the political declaration refers to the parties using their best endeavours to reach an agreement on a fisheries agreement before 1 July 2020.The political declaration reflects the geographic proximity and existing economic integration between the UK-EU. By contrast, Canada is further away with fewer trading flows between it and the EU.On the level economic field, there may be two kinds of rules. Dynamic alignment requires both parties continuously keep their regulations updated to a common standard. By contrast, non regression clauses prohibit regulations following below are previously agreed standard. Following discussions among the EU member states, the European Commission may be instructed to adopt dynamic alignment as part of their negotiating mandate on the level playing field.The UK government no longer contributes to EU trade policy. The terms of trade offered by the EU is entirely within their gift.It’s unclear if Boris Johnson read the politically declaration before telling voters of his “oven ready” deal. Lack of scrutiny or discussion of the political declaration prior to the December 2019 general election may be unwise.

Before predicting the future, I feel I should recap the past.The past 50+ years have been a time of reform and counter-reform within mathematics education. The post-sputnik 1960s brought us "New Math," which was designed to shape the next generation of mathematicians and therefore emphasized abstract mathematics (e.g., working in bases other than base 10).Given how weird the “New Math” was for teachers and parents, there was a backlash in the 70s and 80s, and we went “back to the basics." Instruction again focused on more traditional mathematics skills, with teachers presenting procedures, and students practicing and occasionally applying those procedures.However, due to emerging research suggesting that students learn better when actively making sense of ideas, along with evidence that students could rarely apply the procedures they had learned in the 70s and 80s, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) published a series of Standards (1989, 1991, 2000) to increase the role of problem solving and sense-making in math classrooms. NCTM also pushed to broaden the math curriculum to go well beyond computation, with the inclusion of probably, statistics, and algebraic reasoning throughout the K-12 curriculum.However, until the Common Core, each state continued to write their own math standards and choose or design their own assessments. For those states that have adopted it, Common Core now offers a unified set of standards that are similar in many ways to the NCTM Standards. The Common Core focuses primarily on what math should be taught, as opposed to how (although those two things cannot be separated as neatly as some might think – e.g., if “mathematical reasoning” is to be learned, then instruction must leave ample room for students to make sense of math instead of simply practicing given procedures). The Common Core is trying to alleviate the “mile wide – inch deep” problem the U.S. math curriculum has had, and so they are more specific than NCTM in terms of assigning topics to grades. According to the Common Core Website, 45 states were on board in 2013, and this dropped to 42 in 2015.As for the future of math education, it is difficult to predict whether the Common Core will be a de facto U.S. curriculum in 10 years, or if the number of states on board will dwindle further. If Common Core is rejected sooner rather than later, it might be partially due to flat or dwindling NAEP scores (e.g., see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/04/what-the-drop-in-naep-math-scores-tells-us-about-common-core-and-naep/). If Common Core were adopted throughout the U.S., we could see more coherent curriculum, testing, and research, but there are certainly differences of opinions as to whether diminished state autonomy is a good thing.From my perspective, a common curriculum can help ensure that low-resourced states and their students are not short-changed due to lack of human resources to develop and promote solid curricular standards. Good standards and assessments are difficult to develop, and so it makes sense to avoid having every state and district reinventing the wheel.Alongside curricular changes, the issue of standardized testing has heated up in the past few years, and although testing and accountability are likely here to stay, there is currently some softening, with changes to Federal law (NCLB) and more multi-faceted teacher evaluation programs than some accountability advocates initially envisioned. Still, it remains a concern for many that private companies design our high-stakes tests (including K-12 tests and the ACT/SAT) and thereby shape the U.S. curriculum. Perhaps in the next decade or more, there will be a movement to following other countries in having a governing body that is charged with identifying and assessing the curriculum that we as a nation value (as, strangely enough, the National Center for Education Statistics currently does with no-stakes U.S. tests).In terms of math instruction, it feels that we are in an era of “middle ground” among the various reforms of the past decades. For example, in mathematics education, the “Math Wars” have calmed down, and there is clear agreement that students need both procedural and problem solving skills. I suspect this “middle ground” era will continue over the next decade.In my more optimistic moments, I suspect that some areas of education research will accelerate in the next 10+ years through the increased availability of education data (e.g., state longitudinal data systems; big data from digital learning/research environments) and a more concerted effort to use those data in smart ways. This extent to which my optimsim is warranted will largely depend on Federal and state investments in education research over the next decade.

In some instances, legal language is arcane and convoluted for the very reasons other answerers have mentioned. But, another reason is, lawyers learn legal writing from other lawyers, and tend to adopt a format and style that they "think" is proper, based on their instruction, their readings of cases, and their own ideas of what legal writing should be. Much of legal writing is unnecessarily unclear. I have watched interviews with judges where they lament the unclear language used by many lawyers. Lawyers who have the courage to write for clarity will remove "legalese" in favor of a straightforward writing. Bryan Garner is the leader in the field of clear, concise, persuasive legal writing. Lawyers who attend his seminars can learn that it's OK to remove the repeated use of "WHEARAS" from each line item in a set of recitals, for example.Of course, terms of art, which have distinct legal meaning, must be retained, and drafting conventions that are standardly used to avoid ambiguity, such as with drafting testamentary documents, are best followed. But much of what is written could be re-drafted for concise, clear reading, if lawyers could understand and be taught the value of that.