lot on education, we want to reduce
inequality in our school system.
The American experience has always
accommodated a great deal of disagreement about what to teach, how to teach
it, and when to teach it. As late as
March 2009, a panel appointed by President George W. Bush tried—again—to
put to rest what the New York Times
called “the long, heated debate over
math teaching methods” (Lewin, 2008).
Debates over how to teach reading are
still divisive. Controversies over
teaching evolution and other topics still
flare up around the country—at times
even involving literal textbook fires,
such as in West Virginia in the 1970s.
All this diversity and disagreement is
like a coil-spring mattress; the weight
pressing on one area of the mattress is
tolerated without affecting the rest of
the mattress. When we try to settle basic
differences about education at a national
level, however, we elevate the stakes.
We open the door for national-level
organizations to bring pressures and
counter-pressures to bear. As U.S. citizens balance a desire for commonality
against tolerance for differences, we face
the question of how strongly we want to
raise such issues to a court of national
settlement.
Are National Standards the Right Move?
Phillip Schlechty
Will national standards encourage the
pursuit of excellence in
education? I think not.
Rather, national standards will quickly morph
into national assessments
and a national system of
enforcement, leading to trivialization
and an emphasis on minimums. As I
read about the work of the National
Governors Association and the
Council of Chief State School Officers,
I fear that this is the direction in which
we are headed.
Before we proceed with the development of national standards, we should
take a closer look at Finland. Finland
has a system of national standards, but
it leaves assessment of students up to
local communities. Before we establish
national standards, we must do as
Finland did and arrive at some agreement about the purposes of education
in the 21st century and the kind of
society we aspire to be. I find little in
our discussion about standards that
addresses such issues.
For bureaucrats and
control-oriented managers,
Standards should not be fixed
points. Rather, they should mark a
horizon. We need to understand stan-
dards as the ancient Greeks under-
stood them: ideals to be pursued
rather than pedestals upon which to
stand. Excellence requires the pursuit
of an ideal rather than compliance
with minimum expectations.
Up the Hill Again?
Beginning in March 2009, signs
emerged that supporters of national
standards were making another effort to
storm the hill under a new banner:
Common Standards. If the word federal
has become tarnished in connection
with standards, so has the word
national; both words suggest requirements emanating from on high, even if
not from the federal government. The
National Governors Association, the
National Council of Chief State School
Officers, Achieve, the College Board,
and ACT have organized into a strong
coalition. That coalition moved quickly
to get most states to sign an agreement
Phillip Schlechty is Founder and Chief
Executive Officer of the Schlechty
Center in Louisville, Kentucky;
pschlechty@schlechtycenter.org.
to unite around a set of common standards. At this point, this means
common content standards for the
subject matter to be taught at each
grade level.
The starting point has been to write
standards for what U.S. students should
know when they leave high school to be
ready for college and career. As this
article went to press, the coalition had
drafted standards in math and reading
and was putting those drafts through a
process of “validation” by a committee
that the coalition appointed. The next
step will be to write standards for each
grade level. Then the question will be
whether the coalition moves on to
create a common test for each grade in
math and reading and advances to other
subject areas.
