March 10th, National Public Radio featured a story on the release of the draft report on National Standards. The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State Education Officers have put together a set of national educational standards. It has fewer standards than most state standards, and they are set higher. You can see the draft at the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
So, will they do any good? It has been argued that standards in and of themselves do not improve school performance. In fact, one way states have gotten around No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has been to dumb down their standards and modify their tests until they got the results they wanted. That has been clearly illustrated by the difference between performance on state tests and the National Assessment of Educational Performance.
If the reauthorization takes the new standards seriously, and we have a national test, we might just end up in a great place, where we see states compared to one another, not just their own performance. It would make it clear that states that spend money on education actually have better performance than states who don't.
So, for me the jury is still out. I plan to spend some time looking over them (the link is above.) Let me know what you think!
Comments
I’m not a big fan of using standards to monitor achievement. I just finished testing some of my students last week. It was a joke. I had 9 kids to test and 3 days to give the test. My students were 1,2 and 3rd graders and I had to test all of them in reading, writing and math. None of them could stay on task long enough to finish the tests in one sitting. Most of them could only do 1-2 pages in a sitting before getting frustrated and shutting down. Not only were they frustrated, but I was frazzled myself. Reading tests I almost had to do 1:1 because my kids who did read needed to read aloud. By the time testing was done I hadn’t finished one of my students. I asked for more time but was not allowed. One of my students literally took the test and bubbled in whatever answer he wanted. He couldn’t read and was not at his grade level in math. The rest of my students could only do portions of the test and for the rest randomly bubbled in answers. This was not a good measure of my students achievement. Lately there has been talk of the standards measuring progress rather than achievement. This may be better for a lot of students but I know that this would not work for mine. That said, most of my students have met or made significant progress in meeting the goals in their IEPs. I don’t know how this could be monitored by the government, but this is what should be measured.
I can see the value in standards for education. I can also see where the standards, if we are going to have them, need to be across all states. Why would learning facts about science and social studies be important in HI and not in NC?
However, I have trouble seeing the value in testing and expecting the student with special needs to meet the standards. Isn’t it inherent in the term special needs or special education that they need something other than the norm?
It has always been my opinion that students that have an IEP should be evaluated on an individual basis as to if they are going to take the standardized test. If not, then they should be evaluated on their IEP goal progress. Every year teachers are forced to create portfolios of student work called alternative assessments. Most of the time the work in the portfolios has nothing to do with the work they do as part of their IEP.
Well, I am probably preaching to the choir…
I agree with 2 previous comments. Special Ed students NEED another way to be evaluated. As a teacher of Special Needs students, I am frustrated, confused, frazzled, saddened,etc about the low, low functioning students having to meet high/grade level standards. Sometimes the gap is too BIG to bridge. More people(specialist, parents, doctors,etc) need to speak up about this issue to better up these students.
I am with Delores on this but, PARENTS & other staff here in Massachusetts ARE pushing hard and believe me, anyone that CAN DO ANYTHING about this matter IS NOT HEARING US! Maybe our minds through this site can put something into action and at least be heard, right now this is what it is!
As far as standards are concerned I don’t believe standards should be changed to ‘dumb’ students down. This is a standard I’m seeing as a whole across America. This should not be happening. As educators we should want standards across our country that force our students to excel, not half-way do something just to pass. Life isn’t a handout, school shouldn’t be either. I believe as educators it is our responsibility to what the best for our students and expect the best; no dumbing down or half way.
I think that standarized testing is not accurate. Teachers and schools should not be held responisble for how well the students do on these tests. These tests are very long and drawn out and student will atcually take the test for a few but eventually they become disenngaged and will just fill in any answer. Eventually they will just want to get the test over with so they can move on to somthing else. This is not the teachers fault because they can not keep the students enggaged for hours.
I think that making national standards is a good idea. I think this way all schools will recieve the same funding and will teach students the same things.
I agree with the assessing special education students differently as well. As a special education teacher, we modify the curriculum and teach the students at their grade level, however, when it comes time for the high stakes test we test them at grade level. It’s defeating to the students. I’m unsure about the National Standards at this point. I think there does need to be some more consistency in regards to state standards and this maybe a step in the right direction. My concern is if they become too strict and we are forced to give robotic instruction (to make sure all the standards are taught) and we don’t get to partake in active learning.