Educational Leadership

dards for the content of what is taught in any grade or subject in school. For some, establishing content standards means increasing the rigor of instruction; for others, it means “standardizing” what knowledge is taught. These two goals are related but different. An extreme example of the latter goal would be the uniformity in France, where at almost any hour, all students are studying the same thing.

Some supporters of standards envision a single national test that all students would be required to take. Others want both prescribed course content and a national test. There are those who claim that standards should be voluntary and those who believe that we should subject all students to them.

When people say they are for or against
national standards, they often harbor
different views of what they want to create.

Goals vary: Some want standards to give teachers information that will improve instruction, whereas others want a national test to measure performance in an NCLB-like accountability system.

Differences also exist on the “how.”
Some people clearly want standards to
be national but to be created and
enforced by some agency other than the
federal government (although possibly
with government funding); others want
the federal government to develop and
prescribe standards. In another version,
both standards and tests would emanate
from outside the federal government,
but they would be used to enforce a
federal accountability system—a
scenario that I believe would effectively
federalize such a test.

Are National Standards the Right Move?
William H. Schmidt

Well-designed national standards are necessary to improve schooling in the United States. Without such standards to guide our fragmented system, we will continue to fail our children. Even the best U.S. students do not perform as highly as the students of top-performing nations; governors and state education leaders have come to recognize the importance of addressing this lack of competitiveness through national standards.

In the United States, we spend a great deal of time arguing about why we should not have national standards. It’s more important to consider the consequences of our not having national standards. International research has shown that top-achieving countries have focused, coherent, and rigorous national standards. These three characteristics can only be achieved when there is a national center. In a highly fragmented system with shared decision making, in which states and even individual districts often establish their own standards, these qualities are almost impossible to achieve.

My argument is twofold. First, if we want to make our students more competitive internationally, both for their own sake and for the nation, then a move to national standards gives schooling the chance to become more focused, coherent, and rigorous.

The second consequence of not enacting standards—a more serious one—is that large numbers of U.S. students will be left behind other U.S. students who simply receive better schooling. The current system, in which students are taught under different standards depending on where they live or the social class of their parents, is intolerable, especially in a democracy. Data show that school districts with higher concentrations of well-educated and well-off parents have more focused and demanding standards. These inequalities are built into the system. In effect, the playing field is not level, and the very students who most depend on schooling as a means to a better life are the ones who suffer.

My point is not to ignore potential negative effects of national standards, but to argue that not moving to such standards has graver consequences. It is detrimental to children’s lives, the nation’s economic prospects, and perhaps most important, to equal opportunity itself.