An Overview of the Standards Movement.

Abstract

If the standards movement is to be worth the upheaval that it has already begun to generate, the kinds of questions that Ms. Lewis explores here must continue to be asked and answered, she says. Whether lauded as a sign of progress or scorned as anathema, the notion of national standards for what students learn in public schools is the hottest item in education reform today. It has provoked everything from federal laws promoting the development of sets of standards to fierce public policy debates (and a hasty Senate resolution disapproving of the result of one standard-setting effort). But much of the turmoil surrounding standards stems from exaggerated claims by opponents and proponents. Beware of those who say that standards will save public education, but be equally skeptical of those who claim that standards will nationalize the curriculum. Neither group is right. Nor is it true that national standards in education do not already exist. Researchers on curriculum and instruction have long pointed out that there is a sameness to what is taught in American public schools, beginning with basal readers and reinforced throughout the years of schooling by other textbooks and standardized tests that guide teachers' priorities. For the past half-century, the standards represented in texts and tests have reflected the commercial market for dumbed-down resources to a greater degree than they have reflected any public consensus on what teachers should teach and students should learn. Until recently, state policies were also mired in a swamp of low standards, as states put their energies and resources into the pursuit of functional literacy or the design of basic competency tests. The current debate is about much higher standards. It is driven by what we have learned about children's cognitive growth and by what we know of the curriculum in other countries. Moreover, the process of developing standards has been open to professional and public scrutiny, not tightly guarded and exclusive, as in the development of a textbook. This very openness has invited controversy. In the late 1970s, when the federal education agency was still an office within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, officials convened a national conference on curriculum. A staff member for Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) asked to see a show of support for a national test. (Pell was once a strong proponent of a centralized curriculum, like the one in France.) From an audience of hundreds, only two or three hands went up. A dozen years later, a national commission of governors, members of Congress, state policy makers, researchers, and educators seriously debated the merits of a national test. They opted instead for a new of standards and assessments that would rise from state initiatives. Through the Goals 2000 legislation and the requirements written into the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), this is now national policy. Moreover, teachers and students should not assume that the standards movement is for some and not for others. Reauthorization of the ESEA, for example, mandates that students who receive Title I services meet the same standards as those the state sets for all students. In addition, a new federally instigated board is to set career skills standards that incorporate academic standards and is to add skills for clusters of occupations. No one will be able to wiggle out of this effort. How did we come so far so fast? Some attribute the embracing of a standards-driven system to the shock of finding out how much students in nations that are our chief economic competitors are capable of - and how little, by comparison, we ask of American students. Others contend that a consensus on national standards is needed to equalize opportunities, an argument that seeks to portray standards as a means to end the de facto academic tracking that pervades American education. …