Standards are without doubt the priority topic on the minds of Northwest educators these days. A recent NWREL survey found that standards — especially, how to make them mesh with local curriculum — rank Number One on the list of concerns for practitioners across the region.

So when education department officials from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington gathered in May to talk about the issue, a spirited discussion ensued. A full spectrum of emotions, ranging from deep frustration to guarded optimism, surfaced during the two-day NWREL-sponsored forum.

Although each state is approaching standards in its own way, several common themes emerged. Here's a recap:

Professional Development. Teachers already in the trenches need high-quality, ongoing inservice training if they are expected to effectively retool their approach to align with standards. "The general challenge we all face is helping teachers live and work in a standards-based environment," said Linda Peterson, school improvement administrator for the Montana Office of Public Instruction. But the challenge is daunting. "How do you get to 5,000 teachers to help them understand the paradigm shift?" Rich Mincer, chief of federal programs for the Idaho Department of Education, wondered aloud. Dennis Small, educational technology specialist for the Washington Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, shared his own version of the same frustration: "We have 40 to 60 inservice providers, with little coordination. We need to have an inservice summit."

Data-Driven Change. Standards provide a clear target — typically captured in test scores — for school improvement. But if data are to drive practice, those numbers must be available and reliable. Too, teachers must know how to use them in pursuit of higher standards. "A lot of educators don't understand what the numbers mean — for example, you can't average your percentile rankings," noted research and evaluation specialist David Breithaupt of Idaho. At the same time, the participants expressed worry over putting too much emphasis on test scores. There is a danger that the growing focus on scores will "turn student achievement into a horse race by the media and the public," Breithaupt warned. Small said his state of Washington is holding summer institutes on the appropriate use of data. For instance, breaking down scores by group ("disaggregating" them, in the lingo of statisticians), can illuminate inequities and help target services. "The whole idea of data-driven decisionmaking is becoming a part of people's thinking," Small said, adding, "How to use data to inform instruction is a huge issue." In Alaska, schools must devote at least one inservice day each school year to examining and discussing their data.

High Standards for All. "All" means everyone. In particular, it means the poor and minority kids who have too often been left behind, victims of low expectations and scarce resources. "Schools are now being held more accountable for those low-achieving kids," remarked Alaska math specialist Nanci Spear of the Department of Education and Early Development. To help at-risk kids meet benchmarks, Alaska legislators passed the Quality School Initiative to fund projects geared at disadvantaged students. Intervention teams are reviewing students' work and crafting plans for improvement using a variety of instructional strategies and feedback. Michael Hall, who oversees Technology Literacy Challenge Grants for Montana, worries about high-end students, as well. He favors an approach that aims for "continuous progress" or "continuous student growth" for all rather than a single "cut score" — what one participant termed an "arbitrary mark in the sky." Hall fears that in the rush to bring low-performing kids up, high achievers' needs will go unmet. "What about gifted kids?" he asks. "What about finding the appropriate standard for each kid?"

Kids on the Move. Keeping up with mobile children is an imperative if standards are really going to help boost achievement for each and every student. Breithaupt of Idaho said that in his state's southern half and elsewhere in the region, the migrant population is high and getting higher-pushing 80 percent in some schools. And, he noted, it's a challenge shared by Oregon and Washington, who often host the same families as they move from state to state to harvest crops or fight wildfires. He insists that a tracking system that follows each child as she or he moves from school to school is essential if educators are to have any chance at bringing all kids up to standards. "We have to track every student from K though 12, no matter where they go," he argues. He's working with district superintendents toward a "unique universal ID code" that would follow each kid from Parma to Vale, Lewiston to Pullman, Clarkston to Salmon — or wherever.

School Sanctions. Low-performing schools that fail to bring achievement up will likely face funding cuts and possible closure under federal proposals being hammered out in Washington, D.C. Forum participants cautioned, however, that such sanctions can be problematic in rural states, where the local school may be the only option on vast tracts of tundra or rangeland. Besides, Spear observed, "kids deserve a great education in their own community."

Curriculum Alignment. Districts are in various stages of revamping their curricula to match state-mandated standards, according to the participants. Washington has formed content-area leadership cadres and has held summer institutes on "transforming the environment," among other strategies for supporting teachers in the transition to standards-based instruction, Small reported. In Idaho, legislators recently allocated $8 million to be parceled out to districts statewide in formula grants for standards implementation. Districts that collaborate with charter schools or other districts will get a bonus. "We have districts all over the board on curriculum alignment," said Carolyn Mauer, chief of curriculum and accountability for the Idaho Department of Education. "We are appealing to the districts that are out front to become the hub of a consortium in their region — to share curriculum with other districts." Montana, too, is moving toward a regional approach. "Our challenge," said Peterson, "is to regionalize the state so we can build capacity" through peer reviews, site visits, and mentoring. Hall, who specializes in technology, stressed that teachers must understand that the technology standards are "for infusion" — that is, they don't stand alone, but rather must be blended into subject-area content — math, social studies, and so on. To help teachers do this, Montana is developing searchable, color-coded tables in Excel; when posted on the department Web site, they will show where all content standards, including technology, intersect and overlap. "There are standards in all content areas, and teachers need to be reminded that they can teach many standards simultaneously," Hall told the gathering, adding, "Teachers are saying, 'I've absolutely got to have this now.'"

Local Control vs. State Standards. In states with a deeply rooted tradition of local decisionmaking about what kids should know and be able to do, a blanket mandate can be a bitter pill. "Since we're such a local-control state," said Spear, "we try to inspire instead of push." Balancing local control and statewide standards, Small observed, is a "delicate dance on eggshells."

Chronically Low-Performing Schools. Participants voiced frustration about those schools that post poor scores year after year and seem immune to change. "It's like the critical-care unit," said Steve Nelson, who directs planning and program development at NWREL. "It's not just about improving the school, it's also about stabilizing the school." Spear shared the stories of several Alaska districts that have used creative strategies to begin turning around troubled schools and win community support. One district, for instance, hired a dance team to teach traditional native dance. Another district paid elders to bring their knowledge, wisdom, and experience to the classroom. "Kids started showing up for school," Spear said, then noted, "The pivotal point of change is the community."

Preservice Training. Participants heartily agreed that schools of education at the region's colleges and universities need to bring their programs into alignment with the standards environment so new teachers are ready to work effectively toward mandated targets. In Idaho, the state board of education is leading an effort to develop teacher certification standards aligned to content standards, reported Mauer. At Montana State University-Bozeman, neophyte math teachers are being trained in the nuances of teaching statistics and geometry — two areas in which tests have turned up weaknesses among middle schoolers. "This training is a direct tie to standards," said Peterson.

The Backlash. Parents and students who are unhappy with the move toward high-stakes testing and standardized teaching have been rising up to protest—"bicker, bicker, bicker," is the way one participant described the growing unrest around standards. In Washington, the grassroots group Mothers and Others Against WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) has encouraged students to refuse testing, according to Small. Montana, Peterson noted, has been "stalwart on not going the high-stakes route." Montana's state-level standards framework is designed to be "general" so local districts can develop their own curriculum aligned to state standards, she said. In Alaska, the education department held a summit on how to communicate high-stakes test results to the community — that is, "how do we interpret this data to people so it doesn't look like an apology, doesn't talk down to them, and it doesn't look like information overload," said Ed McLain, who recently joined the state education department from his post as assistant superintendent of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District.

Most participants agreed that the standards movement has turned a corner. "We've moved from, 'Are we going to do this?' to questions of degree, implementation, and local control," McLain noted. "We've got models out there — schools that are standards-driven. We've got cadres of people who know what they're doing. We didn't have that 10 years ago.

"We will always have critics, but at least we are a topic of conversation," he observed. "We can't open the Anchorage Daily News without seeing an editorial about standards."