eduskeptic

In the last post from Eduskeptic, the establishment of national standards for schools across the nation were discussed. In general, it may be a good idea, on several different levels. When the states apply for educational funding from the Federal government, it would be nice to know that the scores were based on the same criteria, that the criteria were assessed in the same manner, and the scoring itself was an equal opportunity proposition. As of now, that premise is doubtful at best.

While a case can be made for national educational standards across the K-12 spectrum, the rule of unintended consequences will undoubtedly apply, no matter what. It always does. The other side of national testing, the tricky part, needs close scrutiny, at least as close as the standards themselves. If teacher pay and retention is to be tied to the students success with the standards, someone has to pay attention to the process that takes place.

Teaching to the test is not new. It is what educators have done since the beginning of the educational business. How can it be otherwise? A teacher has a text, or expectations, that drive the teaching of the curriculum on a daily basis. If the expectation is that the students will understand the sound of the letter L, it makes perfectly good sense to focus on the letter L and the sound that it makes. After sufficient time dwelling upon this sound, the test is simple: what sound does the letter L make? Follow up is likewise pretty straight forward: in several different words, which ones start with the sound of the letter L? It would be completely counterintuitive to spend a week with the letter Q, then test for the letter L. Not too difficult to understand. There are some things that lend themselves rather well to this model. It is teaching to the test in a pretty pure form.

Once the varied sets of sounds, math formulas, and steps to get the right measurements and quantities is mastered, things do become more difficult. In any part of the curriculum, at least from about 4th grade on up (4th grade is the first year of mostly pure content teaching. Skills based curricula is a K through 3rd grade experience), content  becomes the focus. Students should already know the alphabet, how to read, and a  bucketful of math facts. Content is a different world altogether, but it is dependent upon the successful acquisition of the necessary skills. Content lends itself to interpretation.

Written papers begin to appear in earnest in 4th grade, and then blossom into a full bore flood after that, all the way to the end of the University years. Papers are written for every subject within the curricula strata. Some of the information that is taught isn’t open to very much, if at all, interpretation. Some historical dates are relatively cast in stone, as are some things that have happened in the various disciplines. It is not quite as easy to adequately grade the way things are written about. Teachers all hope for competent usage of the written language. After that, it gets dicey, which is to say, subjective. The various bits of scientific discoveries are not at all always consistent with what the text book may say. While Marie Curie was busy discovering radioactivity, she was in the process of killing herself with her experiments. Text books used to focus on the wonders of radiation, not so much on what happened to Marie. Perhaps they still do.

In a paper about Marie Curie, what is to be showcased? How does a teacher go about grading two equally good compositions about her, written from two perspectives that are completely at odds with each other? Does the science teacher grade differently from the history teacher, who has a different outlook than the English teacher, regarding the assignment?  History is largely, in this writers opinion, distorted very badly in the K-12 curricula. Who’s version are we writing about? Is one version more wrong than another? In the realm of English, is Shakespeare really that good?  Are “be” verbs all that insidious? Is there really only one way to solve a problem in the world of math? Is science a closed loop, with only one answer per question?

In a standardized testing situation, with standardized scoring, there is only one answer per question. This would indicate that the students have to be asked to memorize pre-sorted facts, which can then be sorted out on a bubbleized scantron card. Fill in the correct bubble, and move on. At the end of the test, the card goes into the scantron reader, and a numerical score is produced. What this measures, and all that it measures, is the ability to memorize the material that is pertinent to the test, and which can be scored with fill in bubbles. Math may be different, as a student may actually have to solve a problem to get to the right bubble on the card. Of course, since there are only 4 or 5 answers to choose from, getting close may be all that is needed.

If the nations teachers are going to be held accountable for great scantron scores in order to stay employed, or to move up, or down, on the salary scale, it becomes important to focus on the presumed correct answers. In fact, there have already been instances where teachers have been accused of cheating on this type of scoring, in order to reach the correct numerical strata in order to be judged a “good” teacher. Herein lies the problem, and this may be the dark side of national standards and testing. If the teaching day focuses on only the correct set of, or acceptable set of, answers to a nationally standardized test, it is more about the teacher than the student and what and how the student learns. The restrictions are enormous in this scenario.

The actual art of teaching takes a clear back seat to the mechanical recitation of someones version of facts. This, in and of itself, in this teachers view, is not good. The wide based critical thinking skills that are a hallmark of teaching in the United States, and which have proved to be pretty important, won’t survive in this type of atmosphere. Rote recitation is not education, it is not learning.

Somewhere there is an answer to this conundrum. Somewhere, either at the national level, in Arne Duncan’s group in the Department of Education, or in the staff room of the local elementary school, there is someone who should be able to figure out how to mesh actual learning with a set of national standards and standardized testing that will be acceptable across the educational spectrum. This will only happen if Duncan et al reach out to the educational professionals who actually spend time in classrooms. The theoreticians are useful as well, as are the sociologists, as this is not just a question that centers only in the classroom. It will take the involvement of more than just teachers to make all of this work. After 36 years of teaching, I have to hope that it does work.

Recently, the move to a national set of curriculum standards took on new life.  For quite some time there has been concern that the standards based lessons being taught around the country were anything but equal. The laws that, for better or worse, came into national prominence with the No Child Left Behind legislation, were meant to establish a basis for measuring success in the  classroom. So far, that’s not what we have.

Some states have moved to rectify the mishmosh of expectations. The intent is to make sure that when the educational, and the anti-educational, establishments are touting their success or lack of it  on the standards platform, that everyone is standing on the same platform. Initially, all of the states were given leeway to establish what the standards in their state would be. The fox was about to have lunch, and dinner, in the hen house. That is changing.

The  National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released a set of state-led education standards, the Common Core State Standards. These standards are meant to be rigorous, consistent, and understandable, from state to state, across the nation. In light of the push by the Department of Education for better compliance with the NCLB laws, and the changes in this law, this should be a good thing.

A teacher in California, Iowa, and Maine, should be able to teach a set of recognized and accepted curricula that would enable a family moving from one state to another to be assured that their children will be able to apply what they have learned in a fair and equitable manner. Students should be able to seamlessly blend into a classroom anywhere in the nation and understand what is being taught. States should be able to absolutely rely on a level competition for whatever federal education dollars that are available.

That has, up till now, not been the case. Several states established norms that were, when examined closely, at best, laughable. Texas has long claimed great educational gains using various programs. Held up to national review, the claims haven’t always held up. Mississippi and Louisiana established themselves at the bottom of the credibility ladder. What is clear is that everyone should be seeking the top of the same ladder. Educators, at least the ones this writer has worked with over the last 36 years, would appreciate this.

Because the stakes, which have become more monetized than ever, have gotten more critical, it is likewise more critical for everyone in the education arena to know what is at stake. If we are to improve the perceived quality of education on a national basis, it is important that the states sign on to an agreed K through 12 set of standards, and then to adhere to them. Inherent in the standards agreement is the component that assess how the standards are being met. The fox has to leave the hen house.

It is not just the national standards that are coming down the road. Subsequent to the standards, or, lurking in the background, depending on your point of view, are some other items. If the standards become nationalized, the business of education at the university level leading to a teaching credential may need to be standardized, to the highest state standard that exists. A teacher in one state, moving to another state, would have a portable credential. That does not currently exist. Holding teachers accountable for meeting the national standards would similarly need to be a consistent from state to state. That would seem to indicate that acceptable classroom behaviors would also need to be as standardized as possible. What to do with disruptive students, and how to measure their effect on a classroom would need to be consistent. There would need to be an acceptable alternative placement for the disruptive, or a method of applying a discount to the classroom performance, consistent from state to state. If we are to truly measure each student, teacher, state, against a set of reasonable and rigorous standards, the environment from which the children come to school will absolutely need to be part of the formula.

The list of the possible ramifications, modifications, and permutations of national standards is likely to be quite long. The law of unintended consequences will apply as well. This is not to say that the status quo is acceptable. It isn’t. We have to start somewhere, and the first step does seem to be nationally accepted standards. Education is not a static phenomenon. It is always changing, and over time, the good changes outnumber the bad ones. Anything that stays static for too long will deteriorate. We never have been able to afford that in education. We certainly cannot afford to have that happen now.