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.
