How high should our standards be? Which instructional objectives should be taught at each grade level? What are the core competencies for each subject area?

At a March 2010 meeting with state governors and education officials, President Obama observed, “Today’s system of 50 different sets of benchmarks for academic success means fourth grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming — and they’re getting the same grade. …”

The problem with establishing a national standard is that the 10th Amendment of our Constitution says that powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution of the United States are reserved to the states or the people.

The right to control what is taught in our schools is considered a fundamental “state’s right.”

In recent years the Federal government has eroded this right. How did they do this? George Bush did an end run around the 10th Amendment by tying Federal funding to state participation in standardized testing. Any state which chose not to implement standardized testing would lose millions of dollars in Federal funding.

What happened?

Accountability has become the watchword of the past decade. In some states, like Texas, where the entire concept of accountability began under Governor George Bush, education has devolved into a “teach to the test” mentality. Not only did we teach and test and teach and test and teach and test … but each time we tested, we had to identify which objectives each student passed and which objectives each student failed. My district required teachers to document how each student did on each practice test. We were also required to document how we would reteach lessons that specific students had failed.

I finally left the field of elementary education (and eventually became a chef instructor) after I lost interest in teaching. I opted out of elementary ed because I no longer felt like a teacher. I felt like an educational accountant.

With this being said, I must admit to being a Federalist with regards to the creation of national standards. I think we should emulate the French. The French government defines the standards for something like 75% of the national curriculum and individual regions then define the remaining standards. By doing this, the national government has defined the core instructional objectives that will be taught. The reason that regional areas are allowed input is because this allows education to be adopted to the needs of a community. Students in rural areas for example, may study agriculture or animal husbandry while students in industrialized areas can study welding or mechanics.

Without a national standard, students who move across state lines are likely to develop gaps in their education. I am certainly a case in point. As a child, I attended a private school in Arizona, a public school in Georgia, and international American schools in Ghana, Thailand, and El Salvador.

Although I had a great cultural experience, the problem with moving from school to school across state and national borders is that my high school education was filled with The end result is that my secondary education was top heavy soft sciences … psychology, sociology, and anthropology. The only science classes I was able to take were geology and biology. I never had the opportunity to take physics or chemistry.

Why should any of this matter?

When my father wanted me to follow in his footsteps and attend medical school, I became an undergrad premed student. I lasted for one semester. Without high school chemistry, I lacked the prerequisites to pass chemistry 101 in college. The fact that our teaching assistant was a German who spoke very little English did not help …

George Bush said that he wanted a level playing field by having accountable standards … but whose standards are we using? And how can our playing field be level when school funding from property tax dollars differs between high poverty inner city areas, affluent suburbs, and rural communities?

How can we expect students to learn if they have no adult role models in their lives? How can we learn if they’re hungry or abused? Would you believe that some kids are even homeless? How can we expect a student to learn if the child in question is busy wondering where he’ll sleep tonight and whether he’ll have anything to eat before he goes to bed?

The issue of “accountability” must be tied to a war on crime and poverty.

Please understand that I am not advocating a socialist system of government. The problem with the socialists is that they’ve forgotten that people have an inherent, “What’s in it for me” motivation. Socialist economies breed a sense of entitlement because there are no expectations for individual performance. The worker who is dutiful and diligent and hardworking makes the same amount of money as the worker who is lazy, careless, and late.

What I am saying is that the playing field as it exists today, is not even close to being level. In order for all students to have the opportunity to benefit from education, they need to have their basic minimum needs met. All students need food, clothing, and shelter. I also think they need to feel safe and they need to feel loved.

If there is any doubt that some students are less equal than others, look at Detroit which has an abysmal 25% rate of graduation.

Look at it from the district perspective. If you have a low performing school that has repeatedly failed to meet AYP, who are you going to blame? Will you blame the parents for failing to support education? Will you blame years of neglect which, prior to the advent of standardized testing, allowed students to be “socially promoted” even though the children in question lacked the academic prerequisites to succeed at the next grade level? Will you blame the school or district leadership that failed to provide pull out programs for tutorial assistance and remediation? Will you blame the building administration for failing to follow through on students with chronic absenteeism?

Who will you blame?

The answer is simple. Blame the teacher.

Never mind the fact that the students at this school had chronic attendance problems. Ignore the fact that when parents were called because of their child’s disruptive behavior, the parent said things like, “Well what do you expect me to do about the problem? You’re the teacher!” Ignore also the fact that it’s practically impossible for students who are 2-3 years deficient in all subject areas to pass a grade level test for reading, writing, and math.

If a district suffers a budgetary shortfall because of state deficits, no problem. Districts can trim their budgets by cutting jobs. They can also tell the state education department that “drastic changes” were made at schools that failed to meet AYP. This will effectively buy the district more time even though nothing substantive has really changed.

This policy is a win-win for everyone except the poor unfortunate students who have to attend this school and their equally unfortunate teachers who are nothing more than fall guys in the district’s annual blame game with the state department of education.

If we truly want to make a difference at low performing schools in high poverty areas, we need to give these schools more resources. We need to address truancy, student behavior, hunger, and neglect. We need to provide tutorial assistance. We also need to staff these schools with the most experienced teachers we can find.

Novice educators are well intentioned but novice teachers also need 2-3 years of actual hands-on teaching experience before they should be placed in challenging environments like those found at low performing schools.

We have messed up schools today because of stupid politicians and Duncan is just one more of the same!

It raises issues too of who will teach these challenging students. I doubt that any teacher will be able to stand, day after day, an unrewarding and difficult class day after day.

Certainly the issues that you describe above are real, but I feel that there must be some other solution that does not serve to limit the achievement of those who are already at risk of failure.

The correct approach would be to see what isn’t as valuable, or even needed in a school after making the Internet available to each student. First would be some textbooks, history, geography, government, science, even math all have robust and diverse information available saving hundreds of millions a year.

In many classes there would be less for a teacher to do once they stop standing in front of the room and giving a monologue’s that three favorite students listen to and move to an advisor role to help student learn to find information as we do in the working world. Reducing teachers by 20% at the high school level would free considerable funds now and in the future for investment in the education system of tomorrow.