Ten years ago it was unthinkable that we would see a major push for national education standards. However, after a decade of reform, our emphasis has shifted from fixing schools to breaking the mold. Instead of just trying to do what we're already doing a bit better, we're creating new schools that have the capacity to prepare students to live and work in the 21st century.
Standards for what students should know and be able to do are central to reinventing schools and transforming American education. The standards movement has encouraged a new conventional wisdom in education, embodied in the following statements.
Higher standards are necessary and important as replacements for the current de facto, low-level standards implicit in most textbooks and tests. Recent studies show that textbooks and tests have a significant influence on what is taught and learned. An analysis sponsored by the National Science Foundation revealed that on the six commercial math tests most widely administered to students, 97 percent of the questions tested only low-level conceptual knowledge and 95 percent tested only low-level thinking. In that study, Betty, an urban 5th grade teacher, reported: I'm glued to [the curriculum guide] and to children passing the [state standardized test].... In the past few years I have been using the curriculum guide to identify objectives in order to teach to the test. I'm not teaching the items—the test is secure—but I am teaching the objectives, which are structured to the test.Teaching to the test leaves little time to bring in things—connect things. I can't branch out in the way I would like—I'm working on a strict timeline to cover all of the objectives.
Standards communicate that all students can achieve at higher levels. Transcript studies show that only 63 percent of children with parents who have less than a high school education take Algebra I. A full 91 percent of children with parents who are college graduates take Algebra I. Clear and widely available standards are a necessity for ensuring equal and excellent educational opportunities.
Standards send another positive message: Teachers are reclaiming the profession. Rather than following the dictates of others, teachers are finding their own voice. They are heavily involved in standards projects at the state level, such as the development of the California curriculum frameworks, and at the national level, such as the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Standards embodied in both of those projects are based on the same bold vision developed by teachers in our best classrooms. They focus on problem solving, application, and reasoning. Teachers with the standards projects also are having a major influence on the development of new teaching and testing materials.
Standards are a catalyst to systemic reform. Efforts to improve the schools have been fragmented and incoherent. Standards bring clarity and coherence to the task of increasing student achievement. A recent survey commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education reported that 40 states had used the NCTM standards to develop curriculum frameworks. Thirty-nine states reported that these curriculum frameworks would be used in the development of student assessments. Standards are providing important links among various educational reform activities, including preparation of curriculum frameworks, production and use of instructional materials, professional development activities, and development of assessments.
New national standards are creating a demand for new, improved assessments. Standards such as those developed by NCTM require a wider range of assessments. Unprecedented efforts to develop assessment options such as performance tasks, projects, and portfolios of student work are under way in many areas. In California, the new assessments for 8th graders include enhanced multiple choice tests, projects, and open-ended investigations. The tasks from the California Department of Education's Sampler of Mathematics Assessment model good instruction that engages students.
One of the consequences of the standards movement is revitalized classroom experiences. Rather than standardize teaching, the standards can unleash creativity and innovation. Students who used to sit in math classrooms and watch the teacher demonstrate one way to get the right answer now manipulate objects to reason through new mathematics concepts, do extended projects that require sophisticated mathematical understanding, and explore many ways to get a correct answer.
The U.S. Department of Education is supporting projects to develop voluntary, national standards in the subjects of science, history, the arts, civics, geography, and English. The standards are being developed in a manner that encourages the broadest participation possible in order to build consensus on what our students should know, be able to do, and be like. Some education pundits are already calling this the decade of standards. It is important for all of us to be part of this lively debate.
