The "Tough Standards" Approach in Education
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By Contact the author. June, 2000. There is an ongoing movement within education to strengthen and increase academic standards. In the state of Wisconsin, the Governor, Tommy G. Thompson, a leading figure in the standards movement, introduced a statewide assessment in order to graduate high school. Thompson's measure follows the nationwide movement for rough and tough standards, to make the children of America undergo what their parent's generation had to undergo. For at least two decades, in almost every school across the nation, at every grade level, and in each of the subject matters, student achievement has been assessed. And every year, it has been found largely unchanged from previous testing. Over the same periods, teaching on the whole, appears to have been little changed, certainly not restructured. Explication of goals appears not to have set more achieveable targets. The last decade has seen efforts to set standards particularly for levels of student performance needed to restore American education to a leading, world position. From time to time, gains occurred, but small and not sustained -- losses also occrred.1 So what is the answer? Rather than seeking to make the current system of schooling perform more efficiently by standardizing practice, school reform efforts must focus on building to the capacity of schools and teachers to undertake tasks they have never before been called upon to accomplished.2 For instance, alternatives to traditional education should be assessed, as discussed in-depth within the previous section of the seven part section to increase academic achievement. And what role should the Government have in education? No role at all, according to many professors and politicians alike. Diane Ravitch, a former assistant secretary of education under President George Bush (Sr.), expressed doubt that the Department of Education would be equipped to make Clinton's agenda feasible. "What the Department does is dispense money; it doesn't make decisions about standards," Ms. Ravitch, now an education research professor at New York University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in an interview. Furthermore, the DOE has "neither the capacity nor the staff to do the monitoring."4 Clearly when representatives from fifty states meet to attempt to establish national standards, diverse opinions are likely to lead to diluted national standards.5 National standards would just make the problems within the status quo even worse. The problems in the status quo, and with the standards movement within each individual state, is that testing is largely subjective. But even worse is that students are diminished every time they receive an "F" on a standardized test. After being knocked by parents and teachers for receiving that "F," many students lose motivation to continue learning, according to education expert Alfie Kohn. National standards would not only be a joke6 (can the same Government which spends twice the amount of money on criminals than on its children really be trusted for achievement?), but also an enormous disservice to America's children.6 Even further, there is a barrier to reach the goal of standardized education: namely, teachers. It is clear that teachers aren't implementing standards8, don't know how to implement standards9, and are opposed to the standards themselves10. But the moral arguments opposing standardized education perhaps have the most creed. Ultimately, rigid standards create winners and losers amongst students by narrowing the focus of the curriculum and putting pressure on teachers to cover material rather than to use diverse instructional approaches to reach more students. In a stratified society, these winners and losers are invariably identifable by income status and race. And this gap between low-income students of color and affluent white students will continue to increase, the same author concludes in his study. The fact of the matter is that a rigid set of frameworks can reinforce education inequities because it doesn't provide a vision of learning, teaching, and assessment that embraces diverse learning or because it doesn't address the practice of tracking that relegates some students to a second-class education.11 Other authors, such as Michael W. Apple, agree.12 Two models of educationa standards developed by Costrell (1994) and Betts (1998) differ in some regards, but both establish that whenever a school raises its standards (such as a pass-fail standard), some students will lose out. In essence, a student whose ability or diligence was such that he or she was initially indifferent to meeting the standard or falling below it will choose not to exert the extra effort required after the standard is raised. This can lead to a significant drop in well-being for such students, morally undermining principles of liberty and autonomy.13 And autonmomy is critical to educational innovation: Just as you need to till and fertilize the soul if you want a bumper crop, we need to create the conditions for schools to thrive, take risks, set lofty visions, and experiment.14 The tough standards movement is not only limited to the costs of over-emphasizing standards. The movement is also vulnerable because of how it defines achievement.15 In the status quo, educators generally assume that all students need the same amount of time to reach a certain goal. It's one thing to say that so-and-so should be able to complete such-and-such activity by the end of high school, but it is something else entirely to enforce a time limit as arbitrary as "such-and-such must complete the task by the end of their second grade year". Even worse, the standard is then universally prescribed, and it undermines the student achievement even more. The reason that this situation is not practical is that some students progress and develop faster than others. Thus, the result of grade-by-grade standards is that children develop at different rates -- but those children who develop slowly will be branded as failures simply because they do not learn as quickly as their peers.16 Delving deeper into the psychological roots of educational history, it is important to note the theories of John Dewey, specifically the "learning through doing" model. As education speaker Alfie Kohn said: "I have no objection to teaching kids about the Magna Carta or even to having them know when it was written. But, if they don't have a feeling for why it was written, how it was received, why it mattered; if they don't have any opinion about its contents; if its taught in a way that makes any of this information irrelevent, then what is the point? To prep students for a round on Jeopardy!?"16 Most tough standards advocates also pride themselves on teaching or stressing the "basics" (reading, writing, mathematics, and the such). But with this approach, assignment after assignment only gets more difficult and less meaningful. The lack of meaning to the students when implementing basic curriculum undermines the learning that could be achieved -- learning with passion, zest, yearn, and meaning.17 The absolute most harmful method to education is memorization, stressed by most public school districts and teachers across the country. The problem with "learning by heart" is that it is not true learning at all. In reality, it is glancing at a piece of paper and requires little thinking, perceiving, interpreting, or application skills. "I would hate driving over a bridge, working in a building, or flying in an airplane designed by engineers who depended on their memory," says William Glaser. Can you answer the following questions? If the answer is no, then perhaps you will understand that memorizing factoids in school was a waste of your time (but -- remember -- it still got you that A on Mrs. Crabtree's tests): What is a gerund? What is the formula for area of a cube? Who was the first person to sail around the world? Sources (1) Some Comments on Assessment in U.S. Education by Robert Stake. OnLine. University of Illinois: Education Policy Analysis Archives (July 21, 1998). http://www.olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa. (2) We Can't Get There From Here: Critical Issues in School Reform by Judith M. Newman. Phi Delta Kappa. Educational Consultant. December, 1998. (4) Clinton Links K-12 Dollars, Performance by Joetta L. Sack. Education Week. January 27, 1999. (5) National Testing or National Programming? Achievement Standards for Education Set Unrealistic Goals by Richard Kittl. The Humanist, v.58, p.4. Member of the National Council of Teachers of English. May 15, 1998. (6) Clinton Budget Perpetuates Failed Approaches by Robert Holland. p. A-13. The Richmond Times Dispatch. February 24, 1999. (7) Standards, Information, and the Demand for Student Achievement by Richard J. Murnane and Frank Levy. Education professor at Harvard and economics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Economic Policy Review, v.4, no. 1. March, 1998. (8) Education Trust Press Conference by Kati Haycock. December 3, 1998. (9) Teachers Suggest the Need for Better Training by Jeff Archer. Quoting Judith A. R'nyi, director, National Foundation for Improvement of Education. Education Week. February 3, 1999. (10) Ibid., (7). (11) The State's Role in Shaping a Progressive Vision of Public Education by Dan French. Executive Director, Center for Collaborative Education. Phi Delta Kappa. p. 184. November, 1998. (12) A Review of National Standards in American Education: A Citizen's Guide by Michael W. Apple. OnLine. University of Wisconsin. V.4, no.10. http://www.olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa. (13) The Two-Legged Stool: The Neglected Role of Educational Standards in Improving America's Public Schools by Julian R. Betts. Economics professor, University California San Diego. v.4, no.1, pp. 97-116. March, 1998. (14) Ibid. (11). |
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