July 2009 Question of the Month

[Kim Carter]

Do you support adoption of national standards for K-12 academics? What are your concerns? What are your hopes?

[Brenda Sue Thompson]

I do in fact support national standards as well as more standardized teacher requirements across the country. No, I don't support a national pay standard for teachers but, like students, teachers need to adhere to the same sets of requirements. National standards put all students on a more equal playing field particularly coming out of high school and into college. I also think that states could adjust standards to educate their students in areas more peculiar to their state, like CA history for CA kids and so on. I think national standards in Language Arts, Social Science, Math, and Science DO need to be established and, btw, let's make sure EVOLUTION is taught in ALL publicly funded schools.

[Michael R. Lege]

I have often questioned whether or not national standards for education would be a worthy endeavor. In my travels, I have seen many cities with multiple schools whose standards vary from excellent to practically non existent. Therein lies the problem. Who would administer those standards? The federal govt.? They already do, to a large degree anyway, and most people complain the standards are too low. There are entirely too many students graduating HS whose reading skills are marginal at best, and lack even the fundamentals of math. Are those the kinds of standards that would be imposed by the federal govt.? Social promotion? Revisionism? It would seem that the teacher's unions, more often than not, support everything that is wrong with our schools in the first place. How about the quite influential Teacher's College at Columbia University, that advocates against anything merit based? There are many road blocks to better education for our nations children. I would think a good start would be to marginalize the unions, and to the greatest extent possible, get the federal govt. out of the business of education. One of the problems I have with this mess is funding, (I won't even bother right now with funding issues as it relates to the First Amendment). I was speaking last year with one of our potential congressional candidates and I took his pamphlets away from him and handed one back. I expressed to him that the number I was about to use was arbitrary, but would make the point nonetheless. I asked him to assume that was a textbook and then asked him if he thought it should cost an additional $125.00 per pupil per year to get a student to read. Why should it cost more each year to do the same thing, and get less results? Most of that money does not make it to where it needs to be anyway. Most of it is siphoned off by administration. Many of our nations schools, the worst included, could do a better job on much less than what they are currently receiving in terms of funding. What they lack are adequate standards, but they are too busy being politically correct to realize that. So again, I ask you, who would establish and administer those standards? Note that the standards are much higher in private and parochial schools. The federal govt. has yet to raise the standards in public schools, much less raise them to that level! Why should we believe they would do so now? I would be agreeable to a set of minimal national standards, hopefully much highr than those currently in place, with sufficient autonomy for the state and local schools to improve on those standards, and operate within the scope of their respective regional needs. I am a little confused by your reference to educating students in areas more, "particular", to their state. In Louisiana we have La. history, and as far as I am aware, the students have the option to take elective courses that would benefit them in terms of geographic and/or regional needs. Do you live in a state that does not offer such opportunities? If so, what state, and why not?
I posted this as a reply to your response because of your reference to evolution. Notice the term, "modifications", is used in both of the following definitions. I find it difficult to believe that homosapiens, "evolved", from apes. Why didn't they continue to, "evolve"? A virus, such as malaria, "adapts", very quickly to changes in environmental influences, hence the difficulty in eradicating it, (I would refer you to a book titled, "The Coming Plague", by Laurie Garrett.). Bacteria do the same. As human beings, we are one of, if not the most, adaptable species on the face of the planet. Having worked above the arctic circle, I can attest to that. If we were to overcome the myriad of technological obstacles to living long term in a 0 gravity environment, our astronauts would lose tremendous amounts of bone mass and would likely experience a change in appearance, given enough time in that environment. Would it make them any less human? As humans, we share four genes with our bovine bretheren, but that does not make us cows, (although I do get the distinct impression that some humans prefer to live a, similar ignorant and blissful existence). Have not, and do not, all species continue to adapt to changes in their surroundings? I am Christian, but I do not adhere to everything the church would have me believe. If we all did, electricity might very well have been considered an act of the devil, or maybe of some angry god, and viewed as something too dangerous to pursue. Likewise, I do not necissarily adhere to evolution. I believe in the evidence provided by historical artifacts that have been unearthed, and someday will be. I do find it difficult to trust anything that comes from a source that is more concerned with an agenda than the facts, be it from the left or the right. There have been too many hoaxes perpetrated, and embellishments added in in the names of both evolution and creationism for me to believe either. We do, however, witness adaptation on a consistent basis. Annual flu viruses are evidence of that. Some might say they have evolved into their current form, but that would be disenginous, because they have adapted to various attacks in order to survive and propogate. Forgive the personification please. Let me know when the missing link is found, but until then, rember there are two schools of thought and, hopefully, allow them to be heard so that students might have the opportunity to enhance their critical thinking skills and start learning how to make their own decisions based on the facts and/or information they are able to gather.

evo·lu·tion : the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species) : phylogeny b : a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations ; also: the process described by this theory

ad·ap·ta·tion : adjustment to environmental conditions: as a : adjustment of a sense organ to the intensity or quality of stimulation b : modification of an organism or its parts that makes it more fit for existence under the conditions of its environment

Sincerely,

Michael Lege'

[Don Davies]

National standrads in core subjects,specifically math, science, history, geography, and Engish are not necessarily a threat to creating more democratic schools. Schools within a tighter systemof academic standards can be either more or less democratic. Schools in the Netterlands and Denmark are good examples of school systems with national standards but with many school operating wonderfully democratically and enjoying many variations in content5 and approaches in addition to the core saubjects..

[Roxy Menadelook]

Yes, I support adoption of national standards in the 'basic five' areas: Reading, Writing, Math, Science, Social Studies, as well as in Artistic Expression and Career Exploration. I believe the federal standards should be vague enough to allow for individual states to structure them as needed within their own region and needs. The national standards would be guidelines to ensure quality nationwide, yet still give power to states to manage the system.

My greatest concern is having someone (or a committee) decide for our students in Alaska what they need to know and be able to do without regard to how we live in rural communities. My other concern is implementation of standards on a national level that requires high stakes testing, rather than multiple types of assessment to truly evaluate how well students have mastered these standards.

[Michael R. Lege]

Roxy,

With the benefit of hindsight, we know that high stakes testing is not perfect, but we have also seen abuse in regard to multiple types of assessment. Personally, I believe social promotion and low expectations are the worst things to ever have infected our education system. How would you define multiple types of assessment, and do you think it should be done in conjunction with testing based on the national standards with which you agree? Additionally, do you think there should be a national standard for teacher certification, and should they be tested on proficiency in their field of expertise?
The sheepskin is nothing but that without an education to back it up, and it is only worth the education achieved. How could we prevent abuse of the system through loose interpretation, achieve the best results by honest means, and recognize those teachers who are proficient, or exceedingly so, and bring up to par, (or eliminate), those who are not?

[C Phil Cullen]

One must ask 'Who sets the standards ?' Teachers in the classroom usually want to be supplied with some sort of benchmark against which they can self-evaluate their progress in each of the multitude of learnings that they control. The Principal usually sets these in an elementary school and, if she or he has 'been there and done that', the standards will be realistic and applied to the unique circumstances of each school. Most of the key learnings can be expressed in a generalised manner, so, if they are set at a district, state or national level, it seems obvious that they must be set and approved-of by Teachers and Principals at the chalk face. They just have to be useful.
Society at large needs to approve of generalised essentials. Parents need to reject simplistic solutions to cries for 'back to basics', 'minimal competencies', 'survival skills' and 'blanket testing' . In seeking to establish essentials, caution is required to avoid three simple tendendcies...1. to limit the essentials to the '3Rs' in a society that is highly technological and complex; 2. to define the essentials by the results of tests when it is obvious that tests are severely limited in what they can measure; and 3. to reduce the essentials to a few 'skills' when it is obvious that people use a combination of skills, knowledge and feelings to come to terms with the world.
Sad to say, politically controlled educational authorities are presently being over-whelmed by short-term, small-viewed imperatives. Indeed it is very, very sad that present day pupils are being denied the true joys of learning.

1. toe

[Kathy Emery]

Those of you who talk about "standards" might be interested in reading Don Arnstine's Democracy and the Arts of Schooling. He argues that it is inappropriate to talk about standards in education. Standards are good for manufacturing -- standard sizes of screws and bolts, of railroad tracks, bridges and car parts. But in education, we need to be talking about ideals, not standards. This is what Plato, Rousseau, John Dewey, Myles Horton and Paolo Freire argue. Arnstine's book makes Dewey understandandable to 21st century minds. This is not a question of free speech as much as it is a question of pedagogy. How do people learn? what kind of society do we want to have? these two questions must be answered first before developing pedagogy. Ideals determine the process. standards are what we measure by. education is a process. what schools do today, and have always done,is socialize, not educate. As long as we think in terms of standards and not ideals as guiding pedagogy, we will have schools that reproduce the status quo. if that's what we want, that's what we got.

[Stan Harris]

I think the state is the level at which educational standards ought to be set. The state carries the burden of public education. Fedral intervention into public education has never helped, only pumped more money into a poorly managed and slovenly admnistered project that really belongs to the states. Leave it to the states to compete in terms of the social productivity of the graduates they put out. If there is a problem at the state level it is easier to correct the problem than at a federal level. Who is to say that one national standard is the best standard? Let the local districts and the states be creative in how they pursue academic excellence rather than blindly and resentfully following a manipulative puppet master at a national level in order to qualifiy for a handout that is attached to the puppet strings.

[Michael R. Lege]

Well said Stan!

[Kathy Emery]

I wrote my dissertation on what has been happening to education in the last 20 years (i.e, the shift to high stakes testing). The Business Roundtable originally agreed with Stan, and developed a state by state strategy to transform public schools beginning in 1989. By 2000, however, only 16 state legislatures had passed high stakes testing and state content standards legislation. That's when the BRT lobbyists went to George Miller and Ted Kennedy (RIP) to rewrite ESEA as NCLB so it could operate as leverage to get the other 34 recalcitrant states in line. Now, Obama is using the "Race to the Top" to continue to pursue the BRT's educational agenda. This history seems to indicate that while some states are good at stifling local independence (e.g., Texas, California, NY, Massachusetts, North Carolina), others are not (e.g., Vermont, Idaho, Nebraska, Connecticutt).