Assignment: Types of Writing, Applying Appropriate Styles

Issues in K-12 Education Case Study Document 1

Standards-Based Education

This brief is an overview of the standards-based movement with information synthesized from multiple authentic sources.

What are educational standards?

• Educational standards are written descriptions of the knowledge and skills students should attain.

• Standards are descriptions of demonstrable behaviors. • Standards include both knowledge (such as knowledge of certain facts) and skills

(such as the ability to perform mathematical operations or evaluate texts according to specific criteria).

• Standards should be evidence-based. They should be grounded in research and professional knowledge.

• Standards should apply to all learners. • Standards are not a curriculum. While standards do outline content as well as

skills, they do so in succinct ways. It is up to educators to define the curriculum that will lead students to master the standards.

• Standards are not instructional techniques. Standards tell teachers where to head, not how to get there.

What are standards and how are they used to create educational goals?

• Standards are a clear roadmap for education. Without standards, individual efforts are disorganized and inefficient.

• Standards can provide coherence and consistency across classrooms, schools, districts, and states. In addition, teachers can build off previous materials and goals.

• Standards provide clear targets for improvement. • Standards enable educators to prioritize. The possible realm of teachable content

is infinite. Standards establish a consensus on what is most essential to teach. This allows teachers to explore topics in depth, as opposed to merely scratching the surface.

• Standards embody the latest research in an actionable form; thus, they enable leading-edge understandings to percolate to every level of education.

• Standards provide teachers, students, and families with clear, shared understandings of what is expected of teachers and learners.

• Standards are a key tool of educational reform. • Standards are a great tool for cross-disciplinary learning. Teachers from different

subject areas can work together to achieve common education goals.

What are some of the factors related to the development and implementation of standards?

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• Standards can be created at any level of education: local, state, national, or even international. A variety of stakeholders should be involved in the creation process, including teachers, administrators, and education experts.

• In general, the process of creating new standards involves a balance between maintaining coherence with the traditions of the past while breaking new ground, based on changes in society’s needs and new research into learning.

• Achieving community buy-in is essential in order for the standards to be successfully incorporated into learning.

• Once standards are adopted, changes in instruction must follow. • Assessment is a tool for determining progress in relation to standards, as well as

a formative and summative tool.

What is controversial about standards-based education?

The adoption of new standards can lead to controversy, including points such as:

• Process: Who developed the standards? What research was used? Did the public have the chance to weigh in? Who has the right to impose standards?

• Content: Are the standards too rigorous? Not rigorous enough? Clearly written? Applicable to all learners? Fair?

• Funding: Who will fund the implementation and assessment of standards? • Assessment: How will standards be used in high-stakes assessment and how will

these assessments impact our schools and students? • Gaps: What happens when certain subjects are not addressed by standards?

Some educators believe that standards leave out important aspects of education and thus limit curriculum.

A Brief History of Standards

It is generally agreed in most endeavors that it is impossible to achieve success without first identifying clear goals. In the field of medicine, for example, experts evaluate the various tests and interventions used to diagnose and treat specific conditions and then make recommendations of what constitutes best practice. Business leaders identify a wide range of quantifiable goals, from increasing profit margins to improving environmental sustainability. Educational standards define the skills and knowledge that students are expected to learn and that schools are expected to teach.

The standards-based movement in education has been in existence for decades. In 1980, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics published a revolutionary document titled Agenda for Action: Recommendations for School Mathematics of the 1980s (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2014). The goal was to provide schools with a “clear-cut and carefully reasoned sense of direction” based on “an extensive survey of the opinions of many sectors of society.” The document contained a list of essential mathematical skills and the caution that the “identification of basic skills in mathematics is a dynamic process and should be continually updated to reflect new and changing needs.”

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report titled A Nation at Risk, which claimed that falling educational performance threatened the United States’ standing in the world. In response to the report’s recommendation for stronger

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educational standards, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was established. Its goal was to establish an internal mechanism whereby the teaching profession would define accomplished practice in standards documents and then use the standards to assess and recognize accomplished practitioners. The goal was to have members of the teaching profession rather than government bureaucrats establish standards and oversee licensing, and to focus on the highest level of teaching rather than the minimal competency required for certification.

By the early 1990s, most states were engaged in defining standards. The content, structure, and rigor of the standards that emerged varied widely, as did the process through which the standards were developed. Some states, such as Vermont, initiated broad-based efforts which involved members of the public and teachers. Other states, such as California, relied more on the expertise of leading educators. In 1997, the Individuals with Disabilities Act was reauthorized, and under the reauthorization, states and districts were required to set goals for special-education students that were aligned with state standards for other students (Olson, 2004).

However, at the start of the new millennium, there was widespread concern over uneven educational attainment in the United States, most specifically the achievement gap that existed between minority students and their non-minority peers. President George Bush sent a blueprint for comprehensive education reform titled No Child Left Behind to Congress in January of 2001 and it was signed into law the following year. NCLB created an accountability system for schools based on expectations of “adequate yearly progress” that would be determined through regular assessments in English language arts and mathematics. Compliance with the law was mandatory, but states were allowed to develop their own standards and assessments.

Under NCLB, accountability was tied to student performance in two subjects: reading and math. Many states then focused standards development and instruction on these two subject areas. The No Child Left Behind act held states legally accountable for ensuring that the same minimum percentage of special-education students performed at the proficient level on state assessments as other students (Olson, 2004).

Because each state could set its own standards under NCLB, there was concern that some states could create easily “passable” standards. Therefore, each state’s results were compared against a national benchmark called NAEP.

Nearly 10 years later, a new standards initiative called the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was underway. This time, the goal was to create “high standards that are consistent across states.” Under the auspices of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, English language arts and mathematics standards were developed and published in 2010. The Council for Exceptional Children and other national disability organizations contributed to a statement within the introduction on how the standards should be implemented for students with exceptionalities (Council for Exceptional Children, 2014). The purpose was to provide states with a shared set of goals and expectations specifying the knowledge students need to become college and career ready. The standards would allow students and educators throughout the country to collaborate based on a common set of understandings. Teachers would still have the freedom “to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.” Federal funding enticed the majority of states to add the standards and the corresponding assessments.

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Pushback against the CCSS developed along many fronts, for reasons ranging from a perceived federal intrusion into the state responsibility for education, to the belief that educational reform should focus more on social issues such as poverty (ASCD, 2013). In 2014, Indiana became the first state to back off the CCSS in favor of state-developed standards (Peralta, 2014).

References

American College of Physicians. (2014). ACP best practice advice. Retrieved from http://www.acponline.org/clinical_information/guidelines/best_practice

ASCD. (2013, February 25). ASCD and the Common Core State Standards political pushback on the Common Core. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/common-core/core- connection/02-25-13-political-pushback-on-the-common-core.aspx

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2014). Frequently asked questions. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/resources/frequently-asked-questions

Consortium for Policy Research in Education. (1993). Developing content standards: Creating a process for change. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/CPRE/rb10stan.html

Council for Exceptional Children. (2014). K-12 Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for the instruction of students. Retrieved from http://www.cec.sped.org/Special-Ed- Topics/Specialty-Areas/Commom-Core-State-Standards

Dillon, S. (2006, March 26). Schools cut back subjects to push reading and math. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/education/26child.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Frontline. (2014). The new rules. Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/nochild/nclb.html

The National Assessment of Educational Progress. (2013). Reading framework for the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Retrieved from http://www.nagb.org/content/nagb/assets/documents/publications/frameworks/reading- 2013-framework.pdf

National Center for Education Statistics. (2005, August 10). Important aspects of No Child Left Behind relevant to NAEP. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nclb.asp

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2014). Agenda for action: Basic skills. Retrieved from http://www.nctm.org/standards/content.aspx?id=17280

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Olson, L. (2004, January 8). Enveloping expectations. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/archives/QC04full.pdf

Peralta, E. (2014, March 24). Indiana becomes first state to back out of Common Core. National Public Radio. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo- way/2014/03/24/293894857/indiana-becomes-first-state-to-back-out-of-common-core

Public Education Network and National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education. (2004). Standards and assessment. Retrieved from http://www.ncpie.org/nclbaction/standards_assessment.html

United States Department of Education. (2003). Fact sheet on the major provisions of the conference report to H.R. 1, the No Child Left Behind Act. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/factsheet.html

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