May 15, 2015
Have we talked ourselves to death
about testing? I hope so. Time to remind ourselves what we test for, what assessments are supposed to
reveal: how well students meet our standards. Yes, our standards. The Colorado Academic Standards. Not the federal government’s
standards, not Barak Obama’s standards, not left-wing-America-should-be-ashamed-of-itself
standards.
Our standards. Yes, fellow
countrymen, I come—no irony intended—not to bury the standards, but to praise
them.
Because after a legislative session
fixated on what we’re against, let’s
remember what we are for.
And because,
as imperfect as they are, the Colorado Academic Standards—if we were truly
committed to them—offer a flag around which most of us can rally. Perhaps especially—and here is my main theme—
for those who fear their discipline has been discounted by an accountability regimen
focused on English and math. Arts advocates, those eager to ensure civics are taught, everyone determined
to see health and physical education get their due, anyone
with a passion for economics, geography, or history—each can point to our standards and say: look.
We say this is what we expect
for all students. So let’s do it.
Or to capture it all in three words, our standards tell us—if we are
true to our word—we believe all Colorado students deserve a liberal arts
education.
**
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Standards for student learning are not
new in Colorado. Passed in 1993, House Bill 93-1313 initiated standards based
education for all of Colorado. The statute required the state to create
academic standards in reading,
writing, mathematics, science, history, civics, geography, economics, art,
music and physical education.
Why standards? State
standards for student learning define what students should know and be able
to do at the end of a grade level or grade span. Standards advance equity of
outcomes for students by setting a bar for student performance, defining the
floor but not the ceiling of student learning.
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Twenty-five years ago this month
I received my Master of Arts (of all the impractical fields of study one can
imagine!) in Liberal Education. The next
day I drove north from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and started a job at the Gates
Family Foundation in Denver. The
previous September, our nation’s governors had gathered at Charlottesville,
Virginia, for the Education Summit, which began the push across the country for
academic standards. That same month the
Gates Family Foundation hosted an education conference at Keystone, where 225
Colorado leaders supported 19 public policy recommendations —including a call
for standards that would articulate the skills and knowledge to expect of high
school graduates[1]. During my six years at Gates, we saw Gov. Roy
Romer sign the standards bill in 1993[2],
and we connected with arts, economics, geography, and science groups as
Coloradans wrote the first draft of our standards–then in 11 disciplines (see
box).
Twenty-five years later, I
believe we should still uphold the standards movement, and our standards. How we get
there, the curriculum and lesson plans and instructional approach, will differ
school to school—three cheers for choice
and autonomy!—but the standards articulate, in broad terms, what we expect
of K-12 public education. At a
minimum. And to every school that can
push for more, great!
And yes, I go a step further, and
say, to everyone who insists that reading, writing and math must come first, to
every recent rabid convert to STEM education, or to those who argue we
test-too-much-and-so-no-need-for social studies assessments – OK, but can we at
least all agree on this?: that a sound K-12 public education should offer every
Colorado student a curriculum that meets the Colorado Academic Standards. Which by definition means every student will
have a broad-based education that addresses each
of 10 standards, “for preschool through 12th grade.”
1. reading, writing, and communicating
2. mathematics
3. science
4. social studies
5. world languages
6. music
7. visual arts
8. drama and theatre arts
9. dance
10. comprehensive health and physical education
3. science
4. social studies
5. world languages
6. music
7. visual arts
8. drama and theatre arts
9. dance
10. comprehensive health and physical education
Note
that only #1 and #2 of the 10 standards include Common Core
guidelines. The broad-based nature of
our standards has its roots in legislation over 20 years old, so there is no
need to confuse concerns about the Common Core State Standards—a much more
recent addition—
with the larger point here.
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(See the Colorado Department of Education – What content areas are included in the Colorado Academic Standards? http://www.cde.state.co.us/standardsandinstruction/factsheetsandfaqs#standardsfaqs)
% of students receiving arts education, by grade
cluster:
Elementary
– 98% Middle – 71% High - 54%
In spite of the recession of 2008, “Colorado has ‘held
the line’ on provision of arts education in our public schools” [since
then]. However, “28,000 Colorado
students attend schools that do not offer formal arts education [&] only
half of our high school students are enrolled in arts classes.”
From
Colorado Visual and Performing Arts Education Survey Statistical Report, May
14, 2015
http://www.coloradocreativeindustries.org/sites/default/
files/media/cci_art_education_study_summary_2015_9.pdf
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But, you remind me, these are
GOALS. Not many schools offer a rich
curriculum in all ten disciplines. Our
“local control” state allows us to claim we’re committed to the standards, but
we insist on very little. Two
examples: ARTS: The just-released
survey on arts education in our state, the Colorado
Visual and Performing Arts Education Survey Statistical Report (sponsored by Colorado Creative Industries)
reveals that less than 60% of high school students took any arts class in
2013-14, and that roughly 30,000 K-12 students attended schools with no arts
instruction (see box). PHYS ED: Another recent report found that “only
46 percent of the Colorado’s high-schoolers take at least one physical education class
each week.”[3]
How can this be, if we are committed to the standards?
Similarly, a middle school will
say supervised recess qualifies as meeting the standards in physical education.
Civics and economics are often overlooked[4],
even though they make up two the four specific sections in Colorado’s Social
Studies Standards (along with history
and geography). [5] Afterschool electives, offered to a
limited number, is too often “the best” a school can do to address one of these
“other” disciplines.
What to do, to see that K-12 education
truly commits to the full range of standards?
1.
Don’t whine. Of course we don’t want to emaciate the K-12
curriculum and let it become a mere skeleton of its full measure. And yet we do not serve our cause—our
favorite discipline—by sounding like the spoiled kid in the playground: “That’s
not fair!” Or by repeating a variation
of double negatives: “Don’t cut the __!” “Let’s not discount the value of __!”
“We can’t take away __!”
2.
Instead, let’s hold high a larger vision of what
a public education should be: one
that provides a well-rounded, broad-based curriculum—which, without overstating
the case, we can say reflects a belief in a liberal arts education for all.
This way, all of us advocating
for the rightful place of the arts, civics, economics, geography, physical
education, etc., in our schools can join forces and make a stronger case,
together. No righteous indignation on
behalf of our single issue. Our real cause
is about the very purpose of a public education.
**
It should help to know we are not
alone. Here I gather a few of the voices
now making the case for the liberal arts.[6] They can help us affirm a more uplifting goal
than “mastery of the 3 R’s,” a more inspiring vision than “proficiency on state
exams.” And sorry, but an appeal to the
latest fuzzy buzzword, “21st century learning,” won’t cut it. Let’s
return to a concept with a rich history, one that unites many around a clear purpose:
a sound liberal arts education.
1.
Lt. Gov. Joe
Garcia spoke at the Microsoft YouthSpark Connections Breakfast last
month. The session could have focused
exclusively on STEM, but he—and other speakers—reminded us of the big picture:
“We don’t need just scientists and engineers,” he said, we need them with “a
good liberal arts education. What makes
innovative students? The arts. The ability to communicate.” And when Suma
Nallapati, Colorado’s Secretary of Technology and the State Chief Information
Officer, was asked what advice she would give high school students who wish to
be ready for the job market, answered: “Focus on the liberal arts. We don’t need to separate them from
STEM.” She then added, with a smile (obviously directed at this former
English teacher): “I’m a big fan of Shakespeare!”
2.
In Defense
of a Liberal Education, the new book by Fareed Zakaria (2015).
Historian and author David McCullough was asked to give advice to
students at Providence College who are pursuing a liberal arts education. He responded: “Pursue it with your whole heart and soul
because you will never ever regret it.”
10/28/2013
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“The liberal arts are under
attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged
that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they
seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric
plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, ‘I promise you, folks can make a lot more,
potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an
art history degree.’ …
“Zakaria eloquently expounds on
the virtues of a liberal arts education …. He turns our leaders' vocational
argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get
automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated
within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added
skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design,
communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to
continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal
education.”
3.
“In defense of
liberal arts education,” Jill
Tiefenthaler, President of Colorado College.
“… these politicians are making the all too common
mistake of confusing education with training. The idea that universities should
simply be factories for producing graduates focused exclusively in STEM … fields
is incredibly shortsighted. While getting a job that leads toward a fulfilling
career is a great reason for going to college, it certainly isn't the only one.
A liberal arts education (including, for example, philosophy, art and
sociology) educates the whole person and prepares students to excel in a range
of careers and, even more importantly, live a life rich with meaning and
purpose.” The Denver Post, Guest
Commentary, 10/24/2011.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_19167366
4.
Wall
Street Journal op-ed, “Conservatives, Please Stop Trashing the Liberal Arts,”
by Christopher J. Scalia of the
University of Virginia, March 27, 2015.
“Thomas Jefferson
recognized that a broad education could ensure the survival of the new
democracy. He recognized that ‘even under the best forms, those entrusted with
power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.’ To
defend against this threat, Jefferson wanted ‘to illuminate, as far as
practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them
knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of
the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know
ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to
defeat its purpose.’”
“The liberal
arts, Jefferson recognized, have a practical value that has nothing to do with
direct economic benefits: They are linked to the vitality of a commonwealth and
the survival of a free people.”
5.
Education
Week commentary, “The Humanities Keep Us Human,” by Fred Zilian, Portsmouth Abbey, Rhode Island, Jan. 7, 2015. STEM is in vogue, and Zilian acknowledges his
own appreciation for the sciences. But he urges caution:
“… a caution against imbalance. We take a risk in shifting resources to STEM from the humanities, the mix of subjects that includes the language arts, history, philosophy, religion, and the visual and performing arts. … http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/01/07/the-humanities-keep-us-human.html
“… a caution against imbalance. We take a risk in shifting resources to STEM from the humanities, the mix of subjects that includes the language arts, history, philosophy, religion, and the visual and performing arts. … http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/01/07/the-humanities-keep-us-human.html
I taught one summer at Zilian’s school, Portsmouth Abbey. Like all my most rewarding teaching
experiences, I was in a school with deep convictions about the importance of
the liberal arts. Lt. Gov. Garcia and
President Tiefenthaler of Colorado
College notwithstanding, I am discouraged we have so few Colorado leaders stand
up to the current zeitgeist of “education
as training for the workforce.” I have tried to make this case in various
ways of late (AV#115 – “Sorry, Governor(s), but the purpose of education is not
... a job”; #118 – “Balance – Part 1: Let them talk”; #119 – “Balance – Part 2:
Civic Education”), and I will keep at it.
It is up to school people, I believe, to articulate our higher purpose.
I reflect on the
25 years since I drove north from St. John’s College, to a new state, a new
job. In that time, two themes have been
central to K-12 public schools: choice and standards. Even after a quarter century of legislation, reforms,
and resistance, both remain central to what we say we want of public education.
I hope we can renew the standards discussion in a way that takes us
forward, to a broader and shared understanding of what we owe our students: a liberal arts education
for all.
Another View, a newsletter by Peter Huidekoper,
represents his own opinion and is not intended to represent the
view of any organization he is associated with. Comments are welcome. 303-757-1225 / peterhdkpr@gmail.com
[1] “Establish National Standards for High School
Graduates. The teachers of this
nation deserve an answer to their question, ‘What is it that the United States
needs and wants? Give us specifics.
Provide us with a clear set of goals and empower our principals and us
to reach those goals and we will do it.’” From the Keystone Conference, “A Shift
in the Breeze,” Sept. 1989.
[2] The legislative declaration for HB 1313 called on the
state “to develop content standards, programs of instruction, and assessments
that reflect the highest possible expectations.”
[3]
“Overall, Colorado ranks 24th among states
when it comes to daily physical activity among school-aged children. In
contrast, adults and senior citizens rank first and second respectively…. The
report … also cites major disparities …
Only about 58 percent of kids with family incomes under the federal poverty
level got at least 20 minutes of exercise four or more days a week, compared to
74 percent of kids living in the wealthiest homes.” Chalkbeat Colorado, by Ann Schimke.
[4] See yesterday’s Wall
Street Journal: “Teaching Better Civics for Better Citizens,” Sandra Day
O’Connor & John Glenn, 5/13/15.
[5] CIVICS: Our standards present from 2-3 pages of Grade
Level Expectations for civics for each
grade, K-8. So at least we say this is our intention for every K-8
classroom across the state. And yet, as I showed in AV#119 – Civic Education – Colorado’s expectations for civics
instruction are modest, at best, compared to most states.
[6] My alma mater, of course, never stops making the case.
Last fall St. John’s College hosted a national conference titled, “What is
Liberal Education For?” Details at http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/santa-fe/50th-anniversary-conference/.
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