National Standards- 3/30/2009
There has been an on-going debate, both inside and outside education, about whether the United States should have national standards or not. For many years, the arguments for such standards seemed powerful but not ultimately persuasive. They do now, however, for several reasons which I will elaborate below.
Please note that I am not talking about standards set by the Federal government nor am I talking about a national or Federal curriculum. I would also want to see national standards be voluntary, but only in the sense that districts or states would be allowed to use alternate standards, if they could demonstrate that their standards were equal to or higher than the national standards. States and districts should be free to explore different methods to get students to high levels of achievement, but they should have confidence that those standards mean something.
My reasons are as follows:
- No Child Left Behind was supposed to set high minimum standards for all students in the United States. The Federal Government, however, left it up to each state to set the standards and determine how those would be assessed. Unfortunately, the variations between states have meant that schools judged adequate on the basis of the standards in its state might be failing in another. That has raised questions of fairness and undermined the credibility of the entire system.
- Egregious examples of districts and states fudging results continue to surface. Clearly, the urge to look good often outweighs any fear of consequences if caught.
- The multiplicity of initiatives in standard setting and assessment in different states and districts has diluted the efforts. Parents everywhere want to know how their children are doing. Pooling efforts would ensure that the best minds are pulled together to get the work done at a level of quality everyone could support and get it done quickly.
- Garrison Keillor talks about Lake Woebegone as a place where all students are above average. If one looked at the publicity from schools across the country, the picture would look somewhat similar. While every community, just as every parent, would like to see their children succeed, they want to know that the success is real. Telling people reality may be uncomfortable sometimes, but I think that we underestimate the capacity of communities and families to handle reality. Knowing where their children stood relative to meaningful standards which were the same everywhere would be helpful. Those places which were behind could know where they really stood and do something about it. Those which were doing well, would have the assurance that it was not an illusion.
