Standards: High Academic Achievement or Test-Driven Classrooms?

What's the Policy?

Back in January 1996, then-president Bill Clinton spoke to the nation in these words: "I challenge every community, every school, and every state to adopt national standards of excellence, to measure whether schools are meeting those standards and to hold them accountable for results." A movement in the 1980s and 1990s to establish national standards had failed. However, many states have since developed and adopted their own sets of standards for what students should know and be able to do. However, national standards, or at least national testing, may be experiencing a resurgence. President George W. Bush has made education a priority of his administration and, in 2001 Congress adopted legislation that would require school districts that receive federal funding (nearly all public schools in the United States) to test all students in grades 4, 8, and 12.

How Does It Affect Teachers?

Standards are something of an educational double-edged sword. On the one hand, standards provide clarity. Teacher and students know what they are trying to accomplish, and therefore they can focus instruction and attention on achieving those standards (for instance, "At the end of second grade, students will be able to read at X level of proficiency; at the completion of tenth grade, students will have attained Y level of mathematical proficiency.").

On the other hand, the focus of instruction often narrows, not to the larger concepts behind the standards but to the tests that claim to measure the standards. Scores on these tests become the criteria for students'—and, yes, the teacher's—success or failure. Given that fact of life, teachers may tend to rely on that infamous educational methodology, teaching-to-the-test.

What Are the Pros?

Supporters of educational standards have positive goals. The standards movement, as it is called, is driven by the desire of parents and other taxpayers to have the well-educated young adults the United States needs to maintain its position in the world. Also, educators and others naturally desire to have clear targets and to know how well we are doing. Further, the standards movement has been energized by widely published reports of international studies of student achievement, studies that show American students with performance ranging from poor to mediocre.

What Are the Cons?

Philosophical disagreements seem to underlie many of the key objections to the use of standards. Standards, with their emphasis on mastering specific bodies of knowledge that experts believe students should know, appear to emanate from perennialist or essentialist concepts of education. Perhaps because of these emphases, standards seem to work against teachers committed to progressive or constructivist methods of teaching. As discussed earlier, when teachers are under pressure to make sure their students to meet standards of achievement, creative methods such as cooperative learning and projects often go by the board. Direct instruction becomes the rule, followed by much drill and practice. This may help to accomplish high test scores, but these short-term achievements may make education dull, uninspiring, and ultimately counterproductive. In other words, a legitimate public desire for better education may be fostering quite questionable educational practice with little or no long-term gains.

What Do You Think?

1. What other arguments can you think of to support the standards movement in schools? To oppose the standards movement?
2. Can you think of some effective ways to measure students' problem-solving abilities or the development of their own sense of meaning?
3. How does your philosophy of education influence your views on academic standards?
4. Critics argue that standardized tests measure only factual bits of knowledge rather than deep conceptual knowledge. What should be the measure of student knowledge?

For more information on standards and standardized testing, visit these web sites, then reflect on the questions that follow.

Web Links

Standards

http://www.edweek.org/context/topics/issuespage.cfm?id=55

This "hot topic" summary from the weekly online publication Education Week includes links to several related sites for more information.

What Do We Know About Sanctions and Rewards?

http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/infobrief/issue31.html

This October, 2002 Infobrief from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development summarizes the importance of high-stakes testing to school, teachers, and students across the U.S., and examines research evidence from both supporters and opponents of high-stakes standardized tests.

Testing Backlash Key in 5 Governor's Races

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-na-govs27oct27,0,81670.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dlearning

This October 2002 article from the Los Angeles Times describes how five Democratic gubernatorial candidates who opposed high-stakes standardized tests included the issue in the 2002 election campaigns in their states.

States Get Federal Warning on School Standards

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/24/education/24EDUC.html

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 calls for annual testing of children in grades 3-8, with consequences for schools and districts where a majority of students fail to meet standards or show progress toward meeting them. This October 2002 article from the New York Times describes how some states lowered academic standards or changed their definitions of "proficiency" in order to avoid some of the penalties low-performing schools and districts defined by the No Child Left Behind Act.

For Further Reflection

1. What philosophical position seems to be most aligned with the standards movement, which calls for aligning curriculum and testing to clearly defined standards, and for holding schools, teachers, and students responsible for meeting the standards? How does this philosophical position fit with your own ideas?
2. Should the standardized tests that seem to be causing so much of the opposition to the standards movement be replaced? If so, with what? If not, should standardized testing practices be modified in some way?
3. Do the efforts of states to avoid the consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act reflect a flaw in the standards movement, or overly stringent accountability requirements, or some other problem? Explain your position.