Standing on my Education SoapBox---

Standards, high-stakes testing, and curriculum reform:
Who is really the big bad wolf?

Education is a social institution that relies on the principle of renaissance. Teaching and learning are about the processes of discovery, what works, what does not, and applying changes. Throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries, American public education has seen many changes as the proverbial pendulum swings to and fro and teachers, researchers, and even students learn and apply what works for them in and out of the classroom. Certain texts have proven particularly useful in gaining insight into the arena of curriculum reform as it relates to legislation and standards-based programs of study.

The authors of Best Practice recognize that the terms “standards,” “standards-based,” and “higher- standards” have become nebulous, catch all kind of phrases. Initially “a movement that began as a sincere attempt to provide all children with first-rate teaching has mutated…” (Zemelman, Daniels & Hyde, 2005, v). In the 1980s educators wanted to establish a standard, a guideline, thinking that it would be a good idea to identify the concepts that each subject ought to contain and objectives for teachers and students to set as their goals. Problems arose, however, when different national organizations took the idea and applied them differently, likely because “Math people” think differently than “English people” do. Politicians, business groups, school privatization enthusiasts, and policy makers jumped on the standards movement bandwagon as it was already gaining momentum, but they had not earned the knowledge for themselves. They quickly began making decisions about how to use it, though, wielding enormous social capital, as the high-profile “national standards” idea took wing to the beating drum of standardized tests and chants of “Accountability!” States began to set mandates that required teachers to adhere to certain standards, rules, benchmarks, and goals, restricting their art of teaching. (Zemelman, Daniels & Hyde).

Two dominant but very different views of the “standards movement” have arisen over the past thirty years. The accountability advocates believe that “more, high-stakes testing, linked to elaborate rewards and punishments for teachers, students, and school districts” (Zemelman, Daniels & Hyde, ix) will somehow enhance motivation, deepen understanding, and portray relevance for students. It relies on authoritarian control, more rules, and less student/teacher critical thinking and choice. This standards movement has not actually done anything to address the need for a change in curriculum; it is simply a case of doing the same thing over again, harder again, but expecting different results. The curriculum standards movement folks are those whose thinking aligns with the idea that the educational system’s renaissance will come from an overhaul of the actual content being delivered and methods of instruction. Teachers, parents, students, administrators, people in the business world, all recognize that something is not working; students are graduating each spring but without the skills necessary to compete in a global marketplace. As an educational system, we’re missing something. So instead of assessing it to see how broken it really is, the curriculum standards reformers know it is broken and are attempting to fix it.


One of the most troubling thought-droplets in this proverbial bucket is this: how is it possible that those individuals who have no current “in-the-trenches” teaching experience think that they could know what is best for American education? Why do they have the loudest voice? The accountability standards reformers clearly demonstrate their ignorance in educational pedagogy when they ignore the blatant need for true curriculum reform as a means to reshaping American education.
In his article, Wolk addresses this need by calling attention to the idea that a one-size-fits-all kind of national curriculum is absurd. The idea that nationalized a total fact-based recall curriculum would be mandated actually undermines everything that defines American cultural values: individualism, diversity, a cultural melting-pot (or “salad bowl”). Doing so would prevent students in the Louisiana Bayou from delving deeper in to the rich cultural background that is their heritage since the students in Alaska wouldn’t relate, it wouldn’t be in the national curriculum.


In order to understand the significance of this issue, educators and politicians alike must ask themselves a very important question: what is the purpose of the curriculum? “The answer is hardly academic: If the main purpose is to designate specifically what every student should know, then the standards movement and core curriculum make sense. If the purpose is mainly to provide an essential component in learning to think and solve problems, then the specific knowledge is of secondary importance, and requiring all kids to learn the same things at the same time makes no sense” (Wolk, 2008).


Teachers struggle with these competing ideologies because the reality is that both exist, not so harmoniously, in our classrooms. We are forced to deal with the realities of standardized testing, of aligning our curricula to state published standards, spending hours making sure that what we’re teaching is going to be on the test. We end up pushing test taking strategies rather than critical thinking skills; worksheets and ability groups, rather than experiential learning, because it is faster and easier to people manage. Resnick says “The theory that strong accountability systems will prepare students better and motivate both educators and students to more effective learning is, at its heart, a theory that says that positive system changes will result from the establishment of standards and accountability requirements” (35). This makes absolutely no sense to me. How can standards, which seem to be arbitrarily set by those not in the know, covering more material than a student can master in an entire educational career, assessed by tests that are unrelated to good teaching and learning practices, be motivating and result in anything less than so-called “under-prepared” students and teachers? In order for that to be a valid theory, one would have to determine what makes a prepared student, and that, is beginning at curriculum; not just a mastery of facts.

I agree with Wolk, “it is arrogant and counterproductive to set grade-level standards and curricula that define what every student should know,” rather we should level the playing field by teaching the critical thinking, reasoning and processing skills in culturally relevant content. Leave the testing of that up to the people who want to make money from it. I know how to test if my students are mastering skills.





References
Resnick, L. (2006). Making Accountability Really Count. Educational Measurement: Issues & Practice, 25(1), 33-37.
Wolk, R. (2007, March). One Size Fits Whom?. Teacher Magazine, 56.
Zelman, S., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A. (2005). Best Practice: Today’s standards for teaching & learning in America’s schools (3rd ed.). Portsmouth: Heinemann.