Taking a Second Look at Standards

Criticism has caused reformers to rethink the pace and priorities of a movement that has caught on in virtually every state.

Story by LEE SHERMAN, Photos by TROY MABEN

A few minutes of digging on just about any state education department Web site will yield a rich vein of information about K-12 academic standards. If you visit the sites for Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington and print out the pages detailing what kids should know about everything from algebra to media literacy, hundreds of pages containing tens of thousands of words will spew from your inkjet. Stack up the printouts for all five sites, and you'll be looking at a pile of paper more than three inches deep.

Many an educator has felt buried in the verbiage. Many also feel threatened by the expectations that come with those imposing tomes. That's because states and school districts must have some kind of yardstick to measure progress toward the lofty new goals. Usually, that yardstick is a standardized test. Some funding agencies and policy setters are using such tests to reward and/or punish schools, teachers, and students for their performance.

But not without a fight. From coast to coast, the standards movement is increasingly battered by controversy. Reporters and researchers write story after story — for the mainstream press as well as scholarly journals — on the beleaguered reform effort. Page One articles give troubling accounts of cheating as teachers and administrators succumb to pressure for improvement. Banner headlines portray schools as winners and losers in a battle for better numbers. Demonstrations erupt in the streets, where parents carry signs proclaiming, "CHILDREN ARE MORE THAN TEST SCORES!" Teachers trade anecdotes about kids getting sick to their stomach on test day. An expert speaking on a radio talk show passionately warns against turning kids into "trained seals who bark out the right answers on command." The leader of a teacher union cautions that, indeed, the very "soul of education" is in jeopardy as schools become riveted on test results.

Can the standards movement survive the onslaught of critics on so many fronts? Some observers predict the movement's certain demise under assault from unhappy parents and resistant educators. But others are more optimistic. It's not the standards themselves that are the problem, they say. It's the shortage of support for teachers and the over-reliance on tests that could doom the movement. What's needed is a "a better balance" among standards, tests, and teacher training, asserts Education Week in its recent special report on the state of standards nationwide. "State tests are overshadowing the standards they were designed to measure," the editors write in Quality Counts 2001, an exhaustive examination of how standards are playing out in each state. "And many states may be rushing to hold students and schools accountable for results without providing the essential support."

Midcourse Review

"The idea is simple: Set standards for what children should know and be able to do at particular grade levels, align curriculum and teacher training to ensure that students are taught what they need to know, create statewide tests to measure pupil performance relative to the standards, and use the results to allocate assistance, rewards, and sanctions."
— Robin Lake, Paul Hill, Lauren O'Toole, and Mary Beth Celio, Making Standards Work, July 1999

It's hard to pin down the genesis of the standards movement. But most researchers trace its twisting path to the 1984 release of A Nation at Risk, the now- classic report that heaped criticism on the educational system and called for "a tougher set of academic basics for high school graduation." Others believe standards go back to the 1970s with the "minimum-competency" movement, which sputtered and died after a public backlash. By the dawn of the 1990s, then-President George Bush and the nation's 50 governors had hammered out the six national education goals (later expanded to eight) to spur U.S. schools to outscore Asian and European countries that were consistently beating U.S. students on international exams. About the same time that the federal Goals 2000 initiative took off running, professional associations were crafting sets of standards for their subject areas. Beginning with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics — closely followed by comparable groups in other content areas, including science, reading, world languages, and PE — national standards began popping up. These standards in turn became models upon which many states built their own sets of academic content standards-that is, statements that describe what students should know and be able to do at each grade level.

Some 10 years later, virtually all states have academic standards in at least some subjects, Quality Counts 2001 reports. The state-level standards, however, were barely off the copy machine before demands for accountability arose. Education Week's analysis found that more than half the states hold schools accountable for results, either by rating all schools or identifying low-performing ones. Teachers and principals found themselves suddenly sitting on the hot seat, typically with very little training in how to use the standards, very little time to become familiar with them, and very few new resources (if any) to draw upon. In states where educational dollars are tight, educators complain about the "unfunded mandate," especially where high stakes (raises, bonuses, promotions, transfers, school closures) are attached.

Similarly, with little or no exposure to standards-based instruction, many students were hit with make-or-break tests. Even though critics charge that many tests fail to reflect what students have been taught, such tests can carry huge consequences: In 20 states, students must pass these tests to take home a diploma. In the view of many experts, the cart (assessment and accountability) has gotten way out ahead of the horse (standards-based instruction).

In response, lots of voices have been crying, "Whoa!" In the winter of 2000, noting that the decade-old movement was at "a critical juncture," then-U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley called for a "midcourse review." Saying, "I urge leaders at every level to take stock of where they are and where they are going when it comes to implementing standards," Riley cautioned against using a "here's-the-test, top-down approach" to assessments. One policymaker, Arizona state Representative John Huppenthal, went so far as to call the situation a "train wreck." Talking with Education Week in January, he said, "They're high-quality standards, but they present an enormous political problem in which children who have been accepted to quality universities can't get out of high school."

As state lawmakers and education policymakers bump up against irate parents, skeptical teachers, and distraught students, they often engage in some furious backpedaling. The New York Times reported in December that nearly a third of the states that had drafted high-stakes graduation exams (Alaska included) were scaling back or slowing their initial efforts. They've been "rattled" by high failure rates on early tests — or simply by the fear of high failure rates based on experiences like Arizona's, where almost 85 percent of students flunked the math exam. "These states," reported Jacques Steinberg, "have winnowed material to be tested, lowered passing grades, or delayed the effective dates of those exams."

Again and again, as you wade through the literature on standards you will find yourself stumbling over the topic of testing. Indeed, it can seem as though the debate about standards is mostly a debate about testing, particularly the high-stakes kind. One big issue that critics frequently seize upon is the disconnect between the complex, rich kinds of learning that standards evoke and the more superficial, rote kinds of learning that standardized exams typically sample.

"Standards require that students have deeper levels of knowledge about content matter and are able to apply that knowledge," Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) asserts in its November 2000 publication Noteworthy Perspectives on Implementing Standards-Based Education. "Typical multiple-choice questions, true-false items, and fill-in-the-blanks assessment methods are not adequate for assessing this type of knowledge and application." Aligning tests with standards is, many experts insist, the linchpin of the standards movement. Daniel Domenech, writing in The School Administrator in December 2000, minces no words when he says, "It is the question of validity, or how these high-stakes tests are being used and interpreted, that threatens to undermine the whole standards movement."

One independent, bipartisan, nonprofit organization is helping states tackle this most critical of issues. Achieve, Inc., created in 1996 by governors and corporate leaders to help states and private-sector organizations raise standards and performance in America's schools, has devised a process for determining how well tests line up with standards. As described in a March 2000 publication titled Measuring Up: A Report on Education Standards and Assessments for Oregon, Achieve identifies five dimensions for consideration:

Confirmation or construction of test blueprint. Does each test question correspond to at least one state standard?
Content centrality. Does the content of the test item match the content of the standard it is intended to measure?
Performance centrality. Does the type of performance presented by each test item match the type of performance described by the corresponding standard?
Challenge. This dimension includes two components. First, for each item, does the source of the challenge come from content in the standards that students must know to get the item correct, or is the question hard for some extraneous factor, such as the language of the item or trick built in to confuse test-takers? And, second, for a set of items related to a given standard, does the level of challenge represent a range of difficulty that is appropriate for the grade level tested?
Balance and range. These criteria attempt to uncover whether certain concepts and skills delineated in the standards are emphasized on the assessment and, if so, whether they are emphasized at the expense of other important areas.

What these dimensions together attempt to approximate is, in essence, what McREL calls the "ideal approach" to standards-based reform: devising an accountability system that "interacts in a meaningful way with instruction."

Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, summed up the union's position at its July convention. "At a time when testing is being exalted as a cure-all," he said, "we must insist that tests be used as a stethoscope, not a sledgehammer." The 9,000 delegates listening to his speech erupted in applause.

Align, Align, Align

"This is the first time all 50 states have ever tried something so ambitious, so it is important that we have a 'midcourse' review and analysis to make sure everybody understands what the standards movement is all about."
— Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, Noteworthy Perspectives on Implementing Standards-Based Education, November 2000

Think of the standards movement as a continuum, with inputs on one end and outputs on the other. On the inputs end are the curricula we use to teach the content embedded in the standards. On the outputs end are the tests we use to gauge students' learning. A breakdown at either end interrupts the continuum and weakens the whole approach. Other elements along the continuum must also line up: local standards with state standards. Grade-level standards from year to year. Content across classrooms, buildings, and districts. Content across subject areas. Notes McREL: "Standards are intended to serve as the organizing point for curriculum, instruction, and assessment …. One of the main tasks of shifting to a standards-based system is aligning all of the elements of the system (curriculum, instruction, assessment, teacher evaluation, resource allocation) around standards." When all of the pieces are clearly arrayed and articulated, standards can become a road map in the bewildering mishmash of the countless strategies and products available to educators. McREL cites one teacher who sees standards as a "blueprint" that guides her teaching in a concrete and visible way.

Clearly, getting all the aspects of a complex system to match up is a daunting endeavor. Changes need to happen on many levels at once. Experts agree that high-quality training for teachers ought to top the "to do" list. "District and school leaders should guide the development and implementation of a coherent and comprehensive professional development plan that will help teachers acquire the knowledge and skills needed to align curriculum, instruction, and assessment with state and local standards," McREL advises. The laboratory then goes on to list the things that district and school leaders can do to smooth the transition to standards for teachers. "Specifically," McREL recommends, "they can support teachers by clearly communicating the changes that standards-based education will entail and their support for them; pacing the progress of reform; providing structures and opportunities for teachers to learn the knowledge and skills to implement standards; aligning other aspects of the system (for example, time, technology, and teacher evaluation) with the goals of standards-based education; assisting with support of failing students; and helping to make needed resources available."

All Kinds of Kids

"The posturing about education reform is always the easy part, particularly if you have magic-bullet solutions like, If we raise the bar, kids will jump over it. But I think we're at one of those tipping points where some politicians are stepping back from the brink."
— Robert Schaeffer, National Center for Fair & Open Testing, as quoted in The New York Times, December 22, 2000

The tenet that anchors the standards movement philosophically is that all kids can learn at high levels. Research tells us that the expectations we hold for students affect the achievement of those children. The pre-standards approach too often relegated disadvantaged and minority kids to an educational ghetto of dumbed-down curricula and unchallenging lessons, often in the isolation and stigma of pull-out programs. In contrast, a standards-based approach includes all kids in a high-quality learning environment, striving for the same goals, sharing the same resources.

But researchers caution that when misapplied, this philosophy can backfire, hurting the very kids it means to help. Two studies commissioned by the Harvard Civil Rights Project found that low-performing schools in low-income areas tend to focus more on test preparation than schools in more affluent neighborhoods. [The researchers reported that "test preparation is replacing academic curriculum for much of the year in these schools," Hannah Gladfelter of wrote in January 2000.] One of the researchers, Linda McNeil of Rice University, told the journal that this "teaching to the test" — drilling for test-taking skills — happens for "months and months" rather than just a couple of weeks before the exam in the schools studied. Besides robbing students of time for quality learning, these schools also are spending money on test preparation that would have gone toward other educational needs. One primarily Hispanic school in Texas spent $20,000 — the bulk of its instructional budget — on commercial test-prep materials, despite a shortage of library, textbook, and laboratory resources. It also "required top teachers to discard their lessons" and replace them with test preparation, according to Gladfelter. Although scores on the statewide test of academic skills did rise a bit, the school saw a decline in overall reading and thinking skills — a result that clearly runs counter to the goals of any school reform effort ever undertaken.

"It's not teaching to the tests that winds up getting good results," Jeff Howard, founder of the nonprofit Efficacy Institute, said on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" in October. "It's teaching to a clearly identified proficiency standard. Teachers understand it. Parents understand it. Kids understand it. When that begins to happen, people can organize instruction around it."

Kids with disabilities are another category of students that can be overlooked or underserved in the standards environment. A disability rights group, Disability Rights Advocates, has filed suits in California and Oregon, claiming that high-stakes state-level tests discriminate against children with disabilities, Ted Gotsch of Education Daily reported in May. Charging that the California education department has "created chaos and confusion" with its testing program, the group asserts that kids with special needs have been given no alternative assessment, no procedure for requesting accommodations, and no process for appeals. The suit goes on to allege that the exam tests students on material they have never been taught — an accusation that has been leveled against other states, as well, and not necessarily by kids with disabilities. This charge brings up, once again, the absolute necessity of fitting curriculum, standards, and assessments neatly together — and then giving teachers the training they need to translate standards into classroom practice.

A study in Washington state explored the differences between schools that showed rapid growth on standards-based tests and those that showed little or no progress. The study, conducted by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, found that in rapidly improving schools, "principals and teachers assessed strengths and weaknesses, set a limited number of priorities, focused on improving instruction, and took the initiative to find the help the school needed," according to the 1999 study report by Robin Lake, Paul Hill, Lauren O'Toole, and Mary Beth Celio. The report, Making Standards Work: A Case Study of Washington State, goes on to say, "To make sure planned improvements truly happened, principals and teachers re-allocated funds, rearranged teacher work assignments and instructional schedules, and made sure all staff members coordinated their classroom work. The improving schools also continually — and candidly — assessed their own progress."

From the mostly low-income schools it studied, the research team compiled a summary of key findings — insights into why some schools are able to make big strides on the path to high standards:

Effective changes in teaching methods and materials are focused and schoolwide, not random and fragmented. In the two years since statewide testing began, most schools have made changes in what and how they teach. However, the majority of schools whose scores have increased made a single change that affected the whole school and unified the efforts of all teachers. Schools whose scores did not increase added on new programs or materials that affected some teachers and not others and did not lead to a more unified schoolwide approach.
Improving schools focused their efforts on developing children's skills in a few core subjects or skill areas. To make time for these efforts, many schools abandoned activities that were fun and familiar but had no well-defined instructional objectives. Schools whose scores did not increase were generally less focused on skills and more reluctant to eliminate activities that teachers enjoyed but were not clearly productive.
Improving schools operate as teams, not random associations. Improving schools did more than plan; they implemented, every day and in every classroom, and they made sure that teachers at every grade level were coordinating their efforts. Principals and teachers recognized that even the best-conceived strategies fail unless every teacher executes them even when the classroom door is closed.
Professional development is school development. Improving schools had no more funding for teacher professional development than schools whose scores did not increase. However, the former group of schools took much more initiative to find and use professional development programs designed to remedy their particular instructional weaknesses and prioritized the use of their professional development to support the school's improvement plan.
Performance pressure is positive when it leads to determination, not fear. The vast majority of principals reported that the state standards and tests had created pressures for better and more effective teaching. None were complacent, even those whose scores had recently improved. Many principals of improving schools were proud of their gains but worried that some might not be sustained if future fourth-grade classes were less capable than those tested in 1998.
Improving schools don't wait for help, they seek it out. Principals of schools whose scores did not increase often criticized the help and materials provided by their school districts, complaining that help was too general, unfocused, and hard to use. Principals of improving schools were much more likely to say, "the help is out there; it is up to us to select and use what we need."
Improving schools use limited resources strategically. Improving schools focused all available funds on instruction by setting priorities and directing resources toward them. Schools whose scores increased were no more likely to have received extra funding than schools whose scores did not increase.
Parents can help. Improving schools were more likely than other schools to reach out to parents, explaining the state tests and the need for improved performance and asking for help at home, such as reading to children and checking homework.

A Time To Change

"States must balance policies to reward and punish performance with the resources needed for students and schools to meet higher expectations — especially when the futures of individual children are at stake."
— The editors, Quality Counts 2001, Education Week

Another theme that pops up regularly in discussions of standards is that oh-so-scarce but precious commodity, time. Without enough time for planning, training, and reflection, educators will likely fall short of the laudable standards states have put in place. McREL has found that of all the possible support schools may give to teachers, time is Number One on most teachers' wish lists. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania reported in 1998 that teachers need time to "select, adapt, or develop curricular materials that are aligned with the standards framework." Teachers interviewed by McREL said they need time "to develop an understanding of what standards-based education means... and to work with colleagues to develop their own implementation strategies." As one teacher put it, "We need time to just look at standards books and digest what's there." A teacher survey for Quality Counts 2001 found that because state standards are "too voluminous" (remember the three-inch stack of printouts!) seven in 10 teachers have insufficient time to "cover everything in their state standards" — a problem that is "worse for elementary and middle school teachers" than for high school teachers.

Washington state's standards effort is notable for the great chunks of time that have been built into the plan. An effort that began in 1993 is not scheduled to culminate until 2008, when the first class of seniors will need to pass the four Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests (reading, writing, listening, math) to get a diploma. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer lauded the approach in a March 2001 editorial. "Washington is nearly alone in the nation in having embarked on a carefully thought-through and deliberately phased-in multiyear approach to reforming schools," the newspaper asserted. "That gives educators, students, and parents plenty of time to adjust to the new expectations. The deliberate pace of reform gives educators time to get the curriculum and tests right …. At each step of the way, it gives time for intensive intervention for students and schools needing help."

There is, however, some danger in padding the process with too much time, at least one expert suggests. "While Washington state has taken a careful, step-by-step approach to improving its schools, that strategy can also have negative side effects," Stephen Nielsen of the Partnership for Learning told Education Week in April. "After a while, 'people sort of fall asleep' and stop paying attention."

In spite of the controversy it has generated, the standard movement in America is marching forward. And it is getting results. According to the teachers surveyed for Quality Counts 2001, "student and teacher behavior is changing, to some degree, because of state standards." Most said the curriculum is more demanding, expectations of students are higher, teachers are collaborating more, and students are reading and writing more.

Standards hold great promise for schools, most experts believe. Nancy Grasmick, state superintendent of schools in Maryland, argues against caving in to political pressure, as minimum competencies did in the 1970s. "The predictable backlash has already begun," Grasmick wrote in Education Week in January. "Cries are being heard to soften or even scrap the new requirements. Such a scenario would be a national tragedy."