COLORADO’S
ACADEMIC STANDARDS
A
30-YEAR REVIEW ASKS: ARE THEY NO LONGER A PRIORITY?
Even if the standards movement is over, what we
teach—curriculum and content—remains critical
Last winter, during one of the bargaining sessions between
Denver Public Schools and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, DPS
superintendent Susannah Cordova acknowledged what we seldom hear from leaders
in our K-12 education space: “We have too many priorities, too many people
working on those priorities, and not enough impact coming out of that.”[i]
Lest we
forget, the standards movement was inspired by the belief that—along with the
innumerable hopes we have for our K-12 system—at or near the top of the list
was … teaching and learning. Acquiring essential
skills and knowledge.
In short, education.
As a priority.
Too obvious? I’m
afraid not. Not in a world where our “priorities,” if the term even fits, can
seem endless. The standards effort thought
it vital to articulate what we expected of our schools, the broad guidelines
(allowing districts, schools, and teachers to make choices about curriculum and
instruction). No one said a school could not do more, but each school at least
needed to do this: help students meet these standards.
That was then. Last
year Colorado’s Education Leadership Council produced a 51-page report, “The State of Education,” on “the
principles for a world-class education system.” Its four-page executive summary
does not mention the standards. The full report makes only passing
reference to what we once maintained was critical for school improvement (see
section 5). It offers nearly 70 strategies, and then tries to refute the idea “that
so many strategies imply a lack of focus.” Imply? Try: make obvious.
AV #195 - #197 – Looking back to 1989 – what has
changed?
Here I take my third and final look back
to 1989, exploring what has changed in the K-12 education system. AV #195, on
alternative licensure, touched on an issue that has received much attention,
our teaching shortage and how we recruit and retain teachers. AV #196 spoke to
the controversy about charter schools, which also gets plenty of air time. On
both matters, I see changes for the better.
In AV #197 the focus is on the most
important factor in K-12 schools that receives the least attention: what
we teach. The standards, it appears, are no longer a priority. I will argue
why they should be, again. For one compelling reason: I believe we must stay
focused on our mission. (Example: Is it to prepare students for the workplace?
No – see AV #171-175). We are easily distracted and diverted. We will only
succeed if we keep our eye on the ball: on what we teach, and what
students learn.
1. Why so
little attention to the standards?
One
reason: policymakers and the press—and the public, except for that blip when
the Common Core State Standards were a hot topic—have moved on to address more
“newsworthy” issues. Strikes, salaries, shootings, safety. In Sunday’s Denver
Post (7/28) – cyberbullying, and teen addiction to vaping.
Teachers,
though, have not moved on. Here is where “our” voice matters—and I do put on my
teacher-hat for this newsletter. We know we are better off with clear goals, with
well-defined academic expectations. The standards never felt like a “reform”
imposed from outside. They inform what we live and breathe, the subject(s) we
teach, and classroom preparation. (See my file cabinets and 20-plus boxes that now
command much of my basement and garage; lessons plans from 1975-on for teaching
novels, plays, short stories, poems, writing, etc.) They are a guide for how we
plan the 170 days we have with our students; they are a reference point for
what we will teach—on Monday morning.
“The
Colorado Academic Standards (CAS) are the expectations of what students need
to know and be able to do at the end of each grade. They also stand as the
values and content organizers of what Colorado sees as the future skills and
essential knowledge for our next generation to be more successful.”
Colorado
Department of Education [ii]
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But did the
standards movement (1989-200X – your guess is as good as mine) succeed?
We can find various studies as to whether it made a difference for student outcomes
during the decade when we were most committed to implementing our newly agreed
upon standards. My own reading, and my own experience teaching in a Colorado
public school during the years when the standards were omnipresent (recall the
standards posted on our classroom walls?), assure me that it was a positive
step for public education. Teachers valued the greater clarity on what we
needed to teach. Students had a better sense of what they were expected to
learn. Parents, too, had a point of reference. Is this being taught? Is
my child learning to do this?
Implementation,
of course, was imperfect. Negative consequences included a narrowing of the
curriculum (reading, writing, and math—and belatedly science), and teaching to
the state tests (CSAP/TCAP/CMAS). I list five articles in Addendum A
that often make a powerful case against the standards. Those of us who
remain advocates cannot ignore these points. To quote one of these articles,
the impact of the standards on educators and students in Colorado has been “a
mixed bag.”
But
common sense tells us it matters to agree on what is important—in our lives,
in our work. For public education, this was—and is—the key reason we are better
off with clear academic expectations. It was fundamental to why the standards
movement began 30 years ago. Where did we get off track?
2.
Keystone Conference: “Public Education: A
Shift in the Breeze” (Sept. 20-23, 1989)
As in the two previous 30-year reviews,
I begin with proposals from the Keystone Conference.[iii] They
represent ideas that had a strong influence on reform efforts in the 1990’s. This
month I then move to the gathering of the nation’s governors—brought together
by President George H.W. Bush—that took place a week after the Keystone
Conference.
Here
are three of the 19 public policy recommendations supported by a majority of
the 225 state leaders at the conference, “Public Education: A Shift in the
Breeze.” From the summary report produced by the Gates Family Foundation, which
sponsored the summit. (Bold/capitals mine.)
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 to reach those
goals
and we will do it.” 66% considered this
proposal essential or important
Related to this was a
recommendation that would become part of the logical follow-up once standards
were developed: connecting student performance to how schools were evaluated –
i.e., accountability.
Linking High
School Accreditation to Outcome by 1993. Accreditation of public high
schools traditionally has been dependent on appropriate physical facilities,
acceptable teacher-pupil ratios, the presence of teachers and administrators
who have been certified by the state, etc.
By 1993, Colorado should become the first state to link outcome to
accreditation, i.e., to what extent have each school’s diplomas been awarded
upon the successful mastery of the central skills and knowledge prescribed by
the district, state, and/or the U.S. Department of Education? 83% considered this proposal essential or
important
A third and more concrete proposal became a significant focus for me in
the years that followed the conference*. The language here reflects how much this
school redesign was built around academic expectations for students, who would
be asked to “demonstrate mastery” in key disciplines.
Coalition of
Essential Schools – There is an opportunity for Colorado to become the
19th state to take part [in this national effort, redesigning
schools around nine common principles, developed by Dr. Theodore Sizer of Brown
University]. “Sizer’s position is that in the end the success of the
restructuring effort in public education must be measured by determining the
extent to which each graduating student has demonstrated a mastery of thinking
well, communicating clearly verbally or in writing, computing with ease and
accuracy, and such other disciplines as the nation shall determine.”
75% considered
this proposal essential or important
(*In April 1990 the Gates Family
Foundation committed $720,000 to support the Coalition’s work in Colorado, over
several years, which led to six high schools restructuring around Coalition
principals. A later grant was made to evaluate the effort.)
3.
One week after
the Keystone Conference, back east … in Charlottesville, VA
These ideas were hardly unique to a Colorado summit, as was evident the
following weekend at a remarkable gathering of 49 governors sitting down with
the President of the United States (could they do this now?), to discuss
(can you believe it?) public education and the need for clear goals.
“The Road to Charlottesville – The 1989 Education
Summit” (Sept. 27-28, 1989)
“One of the most important events in recent
efforts to reform American schools was the historic meeting of President George
[H.W.] Bush and the nation’s governors at the Charlottesville Education Summit….
Based upon the deliberations there, six national education goals were
developed. They were first announced by President Bush in his State of the
Union speech on January 31, 1990; six months later, the National Education
Goals Panel (NEGP) was established to monitor progress towards the goals.”[iv]
"For exqmple, American students should leave the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades ‘having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including English, mathematics, science, history and geography.’ It was, writes Harvard professor of education Richard Elmore, the inauguration of a period in which there appeared to be ‘broad bipartisan support for some sort of national movement to support state and local goals and standards.’
"Between 1991 and 1992, the federal government, through the Department of Education, funded efforts to draft national curriculum standards in several subject areas.”[v]
Gov. Roy Romer, an attendee at both the Keystone and Charlottesville
summits, became one of the most ardent voices for the development of state
academic standards. His hard work paid off in 1993; that spring, the Colorado
legislature passed the standards bill.
“House Bill 93-1313 initiated
standards based education Colorado. The statute required the state to create
standards in reading, writing, mathematics, science, history, civics,
geography, economics, art, music and physical education. The statute also
originated the Colorado student assessment program in 1996. (From the Colorado
Department of Education, “History and
Development Process for the Colorado Academic Standards.”[vi])
By 1995 Colorado’s standards were in
place, and in 1997 our 4th graders took the first state test aligned
to those standards. Romer’s commitment to this effort never wavered, and his
successor, Gov. Bill Owens, tied his administration’s focus on accountability
to the standards. Commissioners of Education William Moloney (1997-2007) and
Dwight Jones (2007-2010) stayed the course.
Several developments and adjustments followed, including:
2008 – Colorado
Achievement Plan for Kids (CAP4K) called for the State Board to adopt new standards
for all major academic areas.
2009 – The Colorado State Board adopted the revised
Colorado Academic Standards, Dec. 10, 2009.
2010 – August – “The Colorado State Board of Education adopts the
Common Core State Standards in mathematics and English language arts.”[vii]
2010 – December – “CDE re-released the Colorado Academic
Standards in mathematics and reading, writing and communicating inclusive of the
entirety of the Common Core State Standards.”[viii]
2018 – “The State Board of Education approved
revisions to the Colorado Academic Standards (CAS), as required by statute.”[ix]
These will become the 2020 Colorado Academic Standards.
2018-20 – District transition: “Opportunity
for districts to review and revise local standards, curriculum, and assessments
to align with the revised and adopted 2020 Colorado Academic Standards.”[x]
(For more on these
standards and CDE’s current work towards full implementation next year, see: http://www.cde.state.co.us/standardsandinstruction/standards.)
4. A brief and inadequate summary of how
the standards movement lost its mojo
In a word, politics. When I
returned to the classroom to teach English in the fall of 2001, I would have
said that the standards movement was strong. George W. Bush had become President
earlier that year. Over the next few years I heard a few teachers associate Republicans,
No Child Left Behind, and the standards as all of a piece–as Washington’s
agenda, but this felt like a partisan response, not one that came from our classroom
experience. Equally political was the reaction to President Barak Obama eight
years later, leading to the unfair accusation that Race to the Top, and in
particular the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS), represented the U.S.
Department of Education “acting like the nation’s school board.” Although the
Colorado Department of Education and our State Board have emphasized that we
have authored our own state standards, enough doubts persist that this
has all been done to us by the federal government to have tainted what in
1989 had been a bipartisan initiative.
The standards have survived, but
politicians rarely mention them. Advocacy from the governor’s office seems a
distant memory. CDE does its standards work almost on the quiet—as if the less
attention to it, the better.
5. “The State of Education” – from Colorado’s
Education Leadership Council (Dec. 2018)
A prominent example of how the standards have almost disappeared among
many other concerns is the “The State of Education.”[i]
My own view is that its “vision” of the K-12 system reflects our current
muddled and extensive set of what we pretend to call our “priorities.”
Gov.
Hickenlooper signs executive order that redesigns the state’s
Education
Leadership Council
DENVER — Friday,
June 23, 2017 — “We’re pulling together many of the best minds in
education, government and workforce to create a broad strategic vision that
includes all levels of education - from preschool through college and beyond
- in the state of Colorado,” said Governor John Hickenlooper.
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A year ago, after reading “A new
vision for Colorado schools: State of Education”[xii]
in The Denver Post, I sent in this letter to the editor.
Education
priorities amiss
In the commentary
by Lt. Gov. Donna Lynn and Bob Rankin, co-chair of the State of Education, we
hear almost nothing about Colorado schools, and nothing about academic
standards and accountability (not long ago central to efforts to improve K-12
education in our state — where have you gone Roy Romer and Bill Owens?).
The focus is the
“education system” (mentioned six times). They hope our vision keeps in mind
“the workforce,” “training,” “career changes,” “the demands of the labor
market,” “a living wage,” and “jobs of the future.” Let’s hope classrooms and
schools, teaching and learning, remain central to any new vision. (The Denver Post, Aug. 14, 2018)
With the full report from the Education Leadership Council now
available, my critique is more specific:
where are Colorado’s Academic Standards? The report’s executive summary
speaks of “content knowledge” and “skill development,” but not in reference to
the standards. Three bullets state:
·
“Drive student-directed learning experiences to essential
skills” (p. 6). (All bold mine)
This is au courant, and it
has some merit, but it neglects to point out that first of all, adults need
to establish what those essential skills are. “Student-directed learning” can
take off in a million directions, many of them light years away from the
“essential skills” that our standards movement put in
writing.
·
“Create a public-private partnership that
connects educators with practitioners who can engage with students to connect content
knowledge with real-world skill development and application” (p. 7).
Good grief—as if “content-knowledge”
and valuable “skill development” can’t take place during most of a student’s K-12
years without the business community and apprenticeships. Gov. Hickenlooper,
with his push for CareerWise—juniors and seniors don’t need all that time in
school—would have loved this.
- With K-12 and higher education as partners, shift the emphasis away from seat time toward competency and skill development to better prepare students for the rapidly changing economy” (p. 7).
From Introduction to “The Business
of Education – is Education,” winter, 2018
“I gather these
newsletters as both a warning—and as an argument for education to stay true
to its mission, which is not to train future workers. Gov. John Hickenlooper
has used the bully pulpit to suggest it is.… Have we abandoned our goal to
see students meet the Colorado Academic Standards, an essential feature of
legislation signed by governors Romer, Owens, and Ritter? Have we reduced the
larger vision of schooling to be all about career prep?”
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This fashionable theme—also consistent with Hickenlooper’s focus—pervades “The State of Education” (topic of Another
View’s series on “The Business of Education – is Education,” AV#171-175.
See box.) The standards movement did not ignore the connection between what “a
student should know and be able to do” with what happens after high school. But
its “vision” was closer to educating for LIFE, not merely for WORK.
The full document of “The State of
Education” lists five “student competencies,” which includes this one:
- Academic: proficient in Colorado academic standards
Hard to see it as priority when it appears
along with four other “competency categories”:
• Personal: self-aware, flexible, resilient,
adaptive
• Entrepreneurial: critical thinker, problem
solver, creative, curious
• Professional:
takes responsibility, leads others, manages tasks and time well
• Civic: collaborative, culturally aware,
civically engaged, effective communicator
Especially hard to call it a priority when we see it as part of the massive
laundry list–I mean “the principles of our ideal education system”–in the
report (see Addendum B.) Maybe we should feel lucky the report even touched
on the standards.
We get 51 pages covering the landscape--without providing any direction.
No clarity on what is most important about a K-12 education. I am reminded of
the facetious answer to the QUESTION: What is the mission of public
education? ANSWER: We just say
yes.
6.
Calls for a renewed focus on standards and curriculum
I close on a more positive note. Here I present today’s voices—as recent
as this month’s Atlantic magazine—as well one state’s attention to
teaching and learning. Here you see a reform agenda that is not 30-years old,
but one that still insists: what we teach is and must be a priority. I
merely quote a few passages from several articles (links below) that might be
of interest. You might note that a couple of these voices come from “the right
of center” (Petrilli, Bennett). Perhaps that reflects how our most liberal
reformers have hurt their credibility and impact by drifting away from teaching
and learning issues. This should not be a partisan issue. Not when we
are talking about the purpose of schools. When I hear an articulate call for a
focus on what we teach—putting standards and curriculum discussions front and
center—I am cheering.
I can assure you it is front and center for every teacher prepping, right
now, for the first week of school.
Excerpts. Bold mine.
“The
Radical Case for Teaching Kids Stuff”
“In the early grades, U.S. schools
value reading-comprehension skills over knowledge.
The results are devastating,
especially for poor kids.”
by Natalie Wexler, The Atlantic,
August 2019 (pages 20-24)
“… American
elementary education has been shaped by a theory that goes like this: Reading—a
term used to mean not just matching letters to sounds but also
comprehension—can be taught in a manner completely disconnected from
content. Use simple texts to teach children how to find the main idea, make
inferences, draw conclusions, and so on, and eventually they’ll be able to
apply those skills to grasp the meaning of anything put in front of them.
“… despite
the enormous expenditure of time and resources on reading, American children
haven’t become better readers. For the past 20 years, only about a third of
students have scored at or above the proficient level on national tests. For
low-income and minority kids, the picture is especially bleak…
“All of which raises a disturbing question:
What if the medicine we have been prescribing is only
making matters worse, particularly for poor children? What if the best way to
boost reading comprehension is not to drill kids on discrete skills but to
teach them, as early as possible, the very things we’ve marginalized—including
history, science, and other content that could build the knowledge and
vocabulary they need to understand both written texts and the world around
them?”
Natalie Wexler is a journalist based in Washington,
D.C. She is the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education
System—And How to Fix It.
“What education
reformers believe”
by Mike Petrilli,
Flypaper, Thomas B. Fordham Institute (3/13/2019)
What “reformers” believe
·
Good schools deliver strong results for
students—and all schools should be held to account for their results.
…
America today has too many schools that are safe and inviting places with
caring adults and plenty of resources, but where students don’t learn very much
over the course of the year. Those cannot be considered good schools, and their
failure to meet their foremost educational mission must be made clear to
parents and the community and addressed by public authorities.
·
Our schools as a whole could be delivering
much stronger results for all their students, but especially for disadvantaged
children. Ultimately, we want our schools to help young people prepare
for success in some form of postsecondary education or training, for active
participation in our democracy, and for a family-sustaining career. We
reformers look at America’s student outcomes and see both the need and the
possibility for dramatically better performance. We find it unacceptable one- that
only about third of students reach proficient levels in reading and math …
The how
In brief, we
envision a pluralistic system of schools in America that produces much better
outcomes for students. Based on
research evidence, and hard-earned experience, we see the following state policy levers as essential for achieving this vision:
Standards, assessments, and accountability
Academic
standards that aim for readiness in college, career, and citizenship. These
standards—in English language arts and math, but also science, history, civics,
and other academic subjects—set the foundation for appropriately challenging
curriculum and instruction. They also identify the key knowledge and skills
that students need to be on track for success after high school—and make it
possible to determine if and when students are falling behind.
Mike Petrilli is
president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, research fellow at
Stanford University's Hoover Institution, executive editor of Education Next, and a Distinguished
Senior Fellow for Education Commission of the States.
Fordham-Hoover
Education 20/20 speaker series – William J. Bennett (6/2019)
“Dr. Bennett return[s]
to the original question: What is the purpose of school?” (Bold mine)
“He
argues that conservatives must rally behind a unified vision of comprehensive
content and curriculum reform, and that states must take the lead in making
such a vision real. He contends that a content-rich curriculum must be
central to any true answer to this fundamental question and asserts that
it’s time to re-build a conservative education consensus with content at
its core. Too often, Bennett observes, conservatives have lauded school choice
while neglecting other essentials. Often teamed up with liberals, they’ve made
important progress on choice, which remains crucial, but is no panacea.
Conservatives have also made great progress—again, often in joint efforts with
liberals—on standards and accountability, although implementation has often
been stymied by botched federal interference and an overreliance on test scores
that has alienated parents and teachers. Today, we find liberals generally
pursuing very different agendas, to the detriment of student learning.
“A
robust body of shared knowledge, led at the state level, based on comprehensive
content and curriculum reform, is vital to both an individual’s ability to
succeed and a society’s ability to thrive, and agreement on that precept can
serve as a unifying vision for conservatives and a vehicle for promoting other
reforms.”
William
J. Bennett served as the U.S. Secretary of Education and Chairman of the National
Endowment for the Humanities under President Ronald Reagan.
“Don't
Give Up on Curriculum Reform Just Yet”
by
Thomas J. Kane and David M. Steiner (Education Week, 4/11/2019)
“… we both agree that now is not the time to
give up on curriculum reform and move on, as has happened so often in U.S.
education in the past. Rather, we urge states, districts, and the philanthropic
community to understand the magnitude of the transformation that new curricula
require and to identify the package of support teachers and principals need to
reorient their daily work.
“The need for more-rigorous curricula is especially urgent
for low-income children. As a report last year from TNTP notes, ‘Students spent more
than 500 hours per school year on assignments that weren't appropriate for
their grade and with instruction that didn't ask enough of them—the equivalent
of six months of wasted class time in each core subject.’ Still more concerning
is the striking disparity between classrooms of wealthy and of low-income
students: ‘Classrooms that served predominantly students from higher income
backgrounds spent twice as much time on grade-appropriate assignments and five times
as much time with strong instruction, compared to classrooms with predominantly
students from low-income backgrounds.’
“… the worst thing we could do now would be
to conclude that teaching rigorous, demanding academic content to all our
students can't work…. To close the book on curricula now would be equivalent to
closing the book on learning. Curriculum is the foundation for what students
and teachers do together every day.”
Thomas J. Kane is the Walter H. Gale professor of education and
the faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard
University. David M. Steiner is the executive director of the Johns Hopkins
Institute for Education Policy and a professor of education at the university.
“Louisiana Threads the Needle on Ed Reform-Launching
a coherent curriculum in a local-control state”
by Robert Pondiscio, Education
Next (Fall 2017) (Bold
mine)
“… in the last
year, education leaders from across the country have beaten a path here to see
what they might learn from state education superintendent John White; his
assistant superintendent of academics, Rebecca Kockler; and their colleagues.
Together, this team has quietly engineered a system of curriculum-driven
reforms that have prompted Louisiana’s public school teachers to change
the quality of their instruction in measurable and observable ways. These
advances are unmatched in other states that, like Louisiana, have adopted
Common Core or similar standards.
UPDATE: This trend did not continue in 2017. 4th
grade NAEP reading and math scores in Louisiana declined from 2015-2017.
Still, overall, for grades 4 & 8, scores are up from 2003.
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The linchpin
of the state’s work has been providing incentives for districts and schools
statewide to adopt and implement a high-quality and coherent curriculum,
particularly in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics, and to use
that curriculum as the hook on which everything else hangs: assessment,
professional development, and teacher training.…The state has also posted
tantalizing gains in student outcomes: Louisiana 4th graders showed the highest
growth among all states on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP) reading test, and the second-highest in math … other states are taking
notice and may be following Louisiana’s lead.
We saw consistently higher results in Louisiana,” says Julia Kaufman, a RAND policy researcher. “There were occasional high points in other states, but we kept seeing this difference between Louisiana [teachers] and other teachers, which is why we decided to write the report. We just thought there was a story there.”
We saw consistently higher results in Louisiana,” says Julia Kaufman, a RAND policy researcher. “There were occasional high points in other states, but we kept seeing this difference between Louisiana [teachers] and other teachers, which is why we decided to write the report. We just thought there was a story there.”
There is a
story, and it’s about curriculum—perhaps the last, best, and almost entirely
un-pulled education-reform lever. Despite persuasive evidence suggesting
that a high-quality curriculum is a more cost-effective means of improving
student outcomes than many more-popular ed-reform measures, such as merit pay
for teachers or reducing class size, states have largely ignored curriculum
reform.
“People
underestimate the power of curriculum. It’s like buying a new water heater.
It’s not like getting a new kitchen,” says Litsy Witkowski, chief of staff for
academic content at the Louisiana Department of Education. “It’s just not
sexy.”
It’s no
secret that curriculum choices can be a significant factor in raising
academic success, as Massachusetts has demonstrated for nearly 25 years.
The state’s landmark 1993 Education Reform Act introduced not only high
academic standards, accountability, and enhanced school choice, but curriculum
frameworks with a subject-by-subject outline of the material intended to form
the basis of local curricula statewide. Massachusetts has led the nation in
student achievement ever since…..
“What we teach
isn’t some sidebar issue in American education. It is American education,” [David]
Steiner observes. “The track record of top-performing countries, early evidence
of positive effects from faithful implementation of high-quality curricula
here in the United States, and the persistent evidence that our classrooms
are under-challenging our students at every level compel us to put
materials that we use to teach at the core of serious education reform.”
Addendum
A
Criticisms of and warnings against the
standards: from 1999, 2011, 2016, 2017, and 2018
1999
“Why Students Lose When Tougher Standards Win”
A Conversation with Alfie Kohn, Education
Leadership, September 1999
2016
“Is It
Time to Rethink Standards?”
By Joshua Starr, Education
Week, Sept. 16, 2016
2017
“What the Standards-Based Movement Got Wrong - We can modernize academic
standards with three simple questions,” By Jenny Froehle, Education Week, Nov. 28, 2017
2018
“How Academic Standards Can Hold Students Back”
By Natalie
Wexler, Forbes Magazine, Dec. 5, 2018
Addendum B
Colorado
Education Leadership Council’s “The State of Education” (2018)
From
the Executive Summary (pages 5-6)
The
principles for a world-class education system were developed through tremendous
input from
roughly 40
key stakeholders around the state and tested against input gathered from our
public survey
and 70+
roundtable discussions. The principles fall under four major drivers of change.
We believe each driver of
change represents a necessary area for shared focus and meaningful progress if
we want to achieve a
world-class education system. The drivers of change and principles are
summarized here:
Responsive systems that produce agile learners:
• Value how to think and learn in addition to what to learn
• Devolve decision-making authority, maintaining accountability for
rigorous outcomes
• Provide access to high-quality, varied learning experiences
• Offer differentiated, flexible funding based on student need
Robust community and family partnerships to ensure all students
are ready to learn:
• Support capable and caring adults in and out of school
• Nurture students’ physical, mental, social, and emotional health
• Provide safe, inclusive, and culturally-responsive environments
• Build connections between students, school community, and greater
community
Well-supported educators and leaders:
• Receive respect and support for the teaching profession
• Collaborate on decision making with administrators
• Utilize training and tools to create inclusive learning environments
• Prosper from effective professional learning and career growth
opportunities
Cross-sector partnerships that support student learning* and
transitions:
• Provide educational opportunities focused on critical transitions
• Support multiple pathways to and through postsecondary training and
higher education
• Drive student-directed learning experiences toward essential skills
• Inform career and workforce readiness via community and industry
engagement
MY COMMENT:
A misnomer. See pages 41-51. Little on learning, much on “industry and
cross-sector partnerships,” “exposure to the business world,” “postsecondary
pathways such as apprenticeships and certificates,” “work-based learning or
experiential endeavors for which students earn credit,” “careers and workforce
readiness informed by industry ….”
MY COMMENT: On page 44 we read: “Principle 2:
Multiple, viable postsecondary and higher education pathways are explored by
students and valued by all.” This is followed by several strategies. But it does
not ring true, as it fails to recognize the low academic achievement of such a
huge percentage of our 11th and 12th graders. See AV#183
- Remediation rates suggest grad rates will fall, where the average ACT
and/or SAT scores often fall short of our Graduation Guidelines for 2021. More
on this in my next newsletter.
Previous newsletters on the standards
AV #20 – Standards,
the Arts, Grading Schools – And a Balanced Curriculum (April 26, 2000)
AV #21 – Education
Reform- Defining Our Terms – Standards (May 25, 2000)
“Rather than state
what we mean by education reform, too many of us remain disingenuous and vague.
We wave the flag of reform, we say we’re for it, but we don’t present the
details. We would do better if we said: this is what we mean, this is what
we’re for—and why.”
AV #82 –
Implementing Common Core Standards in Language Arts – (Aug. 27, 2011)
AV #105 – Colorado’s
Writing Standards – Why I believe we’re headed in the wrong direction –
Colorado’s writing
standards and high school expectations frown on students finding their voice (Dec. 3, 2013)
AV #130 – The basis
of a well-rounded liberal arts education for K-12: Colorado’s Standards (May 13,
2015)
Endnotes
[i]
Colorado Standards – Academic Standards - https://www.cde.state.co.us/standardsandinstruction/coloradostandards-academicstandards
[ii] “Public Education: A Shift in the
Breeze” - September 20-23, 1989 – Keystone Conference
“In the fall of 1989, the Gates Family
Foundation convened the conference at the ski resort town of Keystone, with the
stated purpose to bring together a critical mass of Colorado’s leaders with the
nation’s leading experts on educational reform in order that the State’s
leaders can learn first-hand about the successful reforms presently under way
throughout the United States so that they might, if they wish, act to institute
such reforms as seem to be potentially productive, throughout the state of
Colorado. The conference, held September 20-23, was named “Public Education: A
Shift in the Breeze.” Nine national leaders in public education, representing
various efforts at educational reform, spoke to 225 leaders of the Colorado legislature,
educational establishment, and various business and private sectors.
“Keynote speakers for the conference
were: Dr. Ernest L. Boyer, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching and Senior Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson School in
Princeton; Fletcher Byrom, retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Koppers Company, Inc.; Dr. Saul Cooperman, Commissioner of Education for the
State of New Jersey; Dr. John Goodlad, author of 22 books and the Director of
the University of Washington’s Center for Educational Renewal; Dr. Frank
Newman, President of the Education Commission of the States; Dr. Ruth Randall,
Commissioner of Education for the State of Minnesota; Roy Romer, Governor of
Colorado; Albert Shanker, President of the American Federation of Teachers; Dr.
Theodore R. Sizer, Chairman of the Education Department at Brown University and
Chairman of the Coalition of Essential Schools; and Dr. William Youngblood,
Principal of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.”
FROM “On the Road of Innovation: Colorado’s Charter School Law Turns
20,” Independence Institute, June 2013
[x] CAS District Transition, http://www.cde.state.co.us/standardsandinstruction/cas-district-transition
[xii] “Colorado schools need a new vision,” Donna Lynne and
Bob Rankin, The Denver Post, Aug. 7, 2018. https://www.denverpost.com/2018/08/06/colorado-schools-need-a-new-vision/
[i] Melanie Asmar, Chalkbeat Colorado, Jan. 9, 2019, https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2019/01/09/denver-has-1-administrator-for-every-7-5-instructional-staff-far-above-state-average/
