We Don’t Need New Standards

The standard assumption about standards, regardless of politics, is that standards are a necessary and pedagogically important part of education. After all, if we didn’t have standards for each discipline, then teachers could teach whatever they wanted. There would be chaos. There would be no equity. Some kids would get a better education than others. A recent piece in Good Education adds several other supposedly important benefits, such as providing a vision, or a “destination for learning,” and a “common language” for educators and parents.

Yet isn’t it possible to provide a high quality education without strict adherence to standards? (Many private schools supposedly do this). And are lack of a “common language” and “destination for learning” really key problems in public education?

The article does identify several significant problems with standards (or, more precisely, how we use them). For example, when the standards are tied to high stakes exams—especially those which influence teacher promotions and dismissals or school closures and restructuring—there is an incentive to teach to the test, cut course offerings and reduce instruction in areas that are not tested.  

However, there are deeper problems with standards that the author completely ignores. The most significant of these is that standards do nothing to mitigate the biggest problem with public education: poverty and the growing wealth gap. An achievement gap associated with children’s socioeconomic backgrounds is in place well before children have started kindergarten (see here and here) and tends to grow over time, as lower income students miss out on many of the extracurricular activities enjoyed by affluent children on weekends, holidays and during summer vacation.

Furthermore, the author’s assertion that standards are essential for creating educational equity is simply not true. Having the same standards and expectations for all children, regardless of their skills, academic and social maturity, and support structures at home, merely ensures that some students will fail because of their socioeconomic backgrounds rather than the quality of their schools and teachers. This serves to reinforce social class divisions by helping to sort children for future courses (e.g., advanced placement for affluent students vs. remedial courses for lower income students) and adulthood (e.g., military or blue collar work for lower income students vs. 4-year university and professional career or management for affluent ones).

Another problem is that standards are influenced far more by the needs of the market than by the needs and interests of children or the benefits to society. For example, the current California state standards for biology have completely dropped natural history to make room for more molecular biology. This is due in part to limitations in time—it’s simply impossible to cover all biological topics in one school year. However, the reason for elevating molecular biology over the study of plants, insects, birds, and marine mammals is that the big money and the jobs currently are in biotechnology, not marine biology or entomology.

For many people, natural history is not only more interesting than molecular biology, but it was precisely their experience with natural history in grade school that got them excited about science in the first place. This is not trivial. If we really want kids to like school and to become self-motivated learners, it is important give them more say in what they learn and not merely shove down their throats what the corporate employers say is important.

Additionally, education is about far more than simply learning a prescribed set of standards. Children are also learning how to communicate and collaborate. They are developing soft skills that can help them navigate the adult world. Ideally, they are also learning to be self-motivated learners who can think critically and solve unique problems. A successful molecular biologist, for example, must not only know the names of the enzymes involved in protein synthesis, but also how to design and carry out a controlled experiment, interpret the results, and communicate their analysis to their peers and the general public. Yet content standards and the high stakes exams associated with them rarely emphasize these skills.

The author suggests that the Common Core Standards (CCS) resolve this problem. While CCS do attempt to cover critical thinking and communication, they are, in fact, merely standards—they do not provide the time, resources, education or motivation for teachers to successfully teach them. And as long as they are tied to high stakes tests (which are currently being designed), most of the problems associated with state content standards will persist. At the same time, the implementation of CCS is costly (over $1 billion in California, alone, according to EdSource), taking scarce educational funding away from other, more pressing needs, like renovating or replacing dilapidated facilities and equipment, decreasing class sizes, and providing teachers and other school employees decent wages and benefits.

The author suggests that because CCS emphasize “21st century skills and knowledge that kids need to master in order to be successful,” students will be liberated from rote memorization and regurgitation of facts and teachers will be able to collaborate across disciplines, such as a science teacher and an English teacher having students “compare and contrast Apollo 11 astronauts’ accounts of the first moon landing.” The problem is that the content standards are not disappearing. CCS is being implemented on top of them. Students will still need to know facts. Furthermore, most teachers are not being provided any additional prep periods or paid time in which to collaborate with their colleagues to design new curriculum. Therefore, this sort of collaboration is not likely to increase as a result of CCS and the implementation of CCS, whether done independently or in collaboration with colleagues, will mostly be done on teachers’ own time or it will supplant their other responsibilities.

Suspend Tests, Not Students

California plans to suspend some of its standardized testing for certain grade levels while it develops new computerized exams for the Common Core Standards (CCS). The plan is projected to save the state $15 million, according to the Los Angeles Times.

While the temporary suspension of tests will be a welcome respite for the minority of teachers and students affected by the plan, it will do nothing to improve education funding since the implementation of CCS is projected to cost well over $1 billion. Additionally, State Superintendent Tom Torlakson has asked the state Board of Education to use the savings for developing higher-quality tests linked to the CCS, leaving little, if any, of the $15 million for hiring teachers, giving raises, buying classroom supplies or any of the myriad other needs of California’s schools.

The new tests are being touted as something that will foster critical thinking and sophisticated reading and writing skills. However, it is unlikely they will improve learning outcomes any better than any of the previous tests because all tests merely assess—they do not teach students anything. Furthermore, the new tests will be just as high stakes as the previous tests, thus perpetuating test anxiety, student stress and disillusionment with learning, and teaching to the test.

Torlakson said, “These new assessments will provide our schools with a way to measure how ready students are for the challenges of a changing world.” While this might be desirable for technocrats and their investor benefactors who expect to profit from the test results by selling snake oil remedies like digital learning aids, textbooks, tutors, and charter schools, it will do little to actually make students more ready for these challenges, let alone prepare them to be critical members of society with the skills and courage to challenge its injustices.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the fact that virtually all academic assessments correlate more strongly with students’ socioeconomic backgrounds than any other factor, including the quality of their schools and teachers. Therefore, simply implementing new tests, no matter how good they are, while continuing to underfund the schools and ignore students’ poverty, will not change the results. At the end of the day, reformers and critics of public education will still be able to complain that too many students are failing to meet academic expectations.

California Abandoning Algebra for Eighth Graders

Image from Flickr, by ajaxofsalamis

California, which had some of the toughest academic standards in the nation, had to dumb down its curriculum and its expectations for students when it approved the Common Core Standards (CCS). One example is Algebra I, which used to be required for all eighth graders. Now, like other states that have adopted the CCS, California will allow students to take either Algebra I or an alternate course that includes some algebra, while the as yet unwritten new CCS exams will focus on content from this alternate course.

Many teachers and student advocates argue that this is appropriate since not all eighth graders are ready for algebra. When students are placed in courses for which they lack the requisite skills they are far more likely to struggle or fail, thus contributing to low self-efficacy and disillusionment with school—both reasons why some students later drop out of school. Furthermore, classrooms with large numbers of students who are not academically ready for a course can contribute to discipline problems and a poor academic environment in which a critical mass of students starts to believe there is no hope of passing, so why bother.  This can bring down the expectations, self-efficacy and motivation of the students in the middle (i.e., those who could pass with a little extra support), thus undermining their chances of success.

From the perspective of middle schools and school districts, delaying Algebra I allows them to improve their test scores (fewer students failing high stakes algebra tests because fewer would be taking them) and their graduation rates (fewer kids failing classes, in general). But this completely ignores the underlying reasons why so many eighth graders aren’t ready for Algebra I and merely passes the problem on to the high schools, where the kids may still lack the academic skills to succeed in the class. Studies indicate that 80% of students who retake algebra continue to fail the class (according to Inside Bay Area).

There are, no doubt, several factors contributing to this problem, but one is likely the social promotion that goes on in the lower grades, with students being passed from one grade level to the next, regardless of whether they have mastered their courses. One argument made in support of social promotion in the earlier grade levels is that holding students back is bad for their self-esteem and therefore harms their long-term success. However, if they are allowed to fail and move on, they continue to have low self-efficacy (i.e., “I cannot get good grades in school”) while picking up the mixed message that it doesn’t really matter (i.e., “I get to move on with my friends to the next level, regardless of whether I do homework, pass exams or classes”).

More significantly, success in math, like in reading, tends to correlate with students’ socioeconomic backgrounds and prior academic success in school. There are certainly some very bright children who are “math-challenged.” Einstein was said to be one. For these students, delaying when they take algebra may help them develop the academic maturity and discipline necessary to pass the course. But for those who are failing Algebra I, along with English and other classes, the problem is much deeper and more intractable. They may have numerous other problems (e.g., poor attendance, bad study habits, learning disabilities, low literacy, a history of failure and concomitant low self-efficacy) that will follow them throughout their academic career, regardless of when they take algebra and that have their roots in the students’ socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g., low income students often lack health insurance and, consequently, have higher rates of absenteeism).

Deferring the problem to high school has ramifications beyond students’ progress in future math classes. Basic algebra is necessary for high school chemistry and biology, courses students are likely to take in the ninth and tenth grades (and fail if they lack the essential math skills). Of course, even students who do take algebra, but fail it, may also have trouble in science, but at least there is a chance that they were exposed to enough algebra to succeed in science. Not taking algebra at all significantly decreases this possibility, as does ignoring the root causes of mass algebra failure.

Another concern is that the creation of two math pathways will allow schools to fall into past bad habits of tracking students based on race or socioeconomic backgrounds. Indeed, a recent report (see Inside Bay Area) showed that some schools were placing black and Latino students in lower level math courses even when they had the skills and prerequisites for advanced math classes. This could also lead to tracking in science classes and reduction of black, Latino and low income students taking college preparatory and ultimately Advanced Placement science and math classes.

Critics of the new Algebra I requirement argue that success in Algebra I is good predictor of future college graduation, while avoiding algebra in middle school may pull students off the college-bound track. When the 8^th grade requirement was implemented, black and Latino enrollment in the class skyrocketed—from 24% to 60% for African-Americans, and tripling for Latinos to 63%—(again, see Inside Bay Area). Even though pass rates for these groups are as low at 60%, there are still more black and Latino students passing the class than in the past (because more are taking the class).

Story Time’s Over Kindergartners—Time To Write Expository Essays!

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

The testing mania that has dominated education reform for the past decade has only indirectly affected kindergartners (the federal and state tests do not start until second grade). However, because the stakes for schools are so high (low test scores can mean reconstitution, mass firings of teachers, forced take over by a charter school), curriculum development and implementation at all grade levels are now influenced by the tests. At some schools, this means a reduction or elimination of arts, music, physical education and even science to make room for math and English support or for test preparation. It may also include practice bubble-in tests at the kindergarten and first grade levels.

At virtually all levels of K-12 education it has reduced the potential for learning activities that are spontaneous, fun, creative and rooted in students’ interests and experiences. While this may prepare children for a future life at a desk in a cubicle (perhaps one reason why the Gates Foundation has spent millions of dollars to promote the Common Core Standards (CCS), it also contributes to their alienation from and disdain for school and learning, as well as the increased stress and anxiety many teachers are noticing in their students.

Presently, despite the testing mania, kindergarten still retains some of the games, song, dance and other playful, lighthearted activities we remember from our own kindergarten experiences. This may soon change with the adoption of Common Core (CCS), which will supposedly put all children on the same learning track as others at their grade level, including the lower elementary grades.

On the surface this might seem like a common sense way to raise the bar and improve learning outcomes (based on the bogus assumption that teachers across the country do whatever they damned well please in the classroom and that there is little or no standardization across grade level). However, as Susan Ohanian shows in her recent critique of the video “From the Page to the Classroom: Implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English Language Arts and Literacy,” the CCS are incredibly rigid and stultifying and could have a detrimental effect on teaching and children’s attitudes toward school and learning. For example, even at the K-5 grades, the CCS require a 50-50 mix of fiction and nonfiction reading, with writing grounded in the texts, with no narrative writing or personal opinions permitted.

Here are just a few of Ohanian’s comments (you can read her full article at the Daily Censored):

The New York Post ran a piece  Playtime’s Over, Kindergartners: Standards stressing kids out, explaining that the city Department of Education wants 4- and 5-year-olds to forget the building blocks and crayons and get busy writing “informative/explanatory reports.”  This includes writing a topic sentence.

When my favorite group of second graders were studying a caterpillar’s transformation, some of the kids wrote me exuberant notes along with drawings about what they were learning. I didn’t check these notes for text complexity or topic sentences. Yes, some kindergartners are ready to read. But  many children are harmed when, in the name of rigor and complexity, what was once second grade is now kindergarten.  We don’t expect all babies to walk or talk at the same age. Why do we think five- and six-year-olds should be standardized in their learning—and shoved as a pack into more rigor? (Look up the definition and ask yourself if that’s what you want for a child you love.)

Professor of Curriculum and Teaching at Hunter College and author of numerous books on children’s literacy development, Sandra Wilde worries about the pressures on kindergartners. She suggests, “Read the book, watch the butterflies develop, act it out, but skip the close reading of long sentences. Fingerpaint butterfly pictures instead. What’s the hurry?”