Common Standards for K-12 Education? Considering the Evidence: Summary of a Workshop Series (2008) / Chapter Skim
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2 Considering the Status Quo
2 Considering the Status Quo
Pages 5-26
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From page 5... ...
Analysis of the content covered in state standards and of the performance expectations that states define provides a detailed picture of the extent of variation across the states. VIEWS FROM THE STATES The views of state-level policy makers were the first focus.
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From page 6... ...
California, which initiated its standards approach during the 1980s, was an early adopter, for example, whereas North Dakota adopted standards in response to federal requirements in 1994. The 21 interview subjects included officials or education aides from governors' offices, members of state boards of education, state legislators, and state education agency officials.
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From page 7... ...
Moreover, respondents from all five states reported that the focus on standards remains variable across and within both states and districts, as do their effects on instruction and learning. Massell explained that the interviewers asked state education leaders for their impressions regarding several aspects of standards-based reform, such as its impact on practice, learning opportunities, the quality of education, and resources.
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From page 8... ...
Discussant Brian Stecher reinforced the concern that improvement has been modest, pointing out that "under the threat of severe sanctions from No Child Left Behind, there is an unknown amount of inflation in test scores, and what we see in terms of gap closing on state tests is not always replicated in other low-stakes assessments." Many participants viewed the challenge of providing a truly equitable education for disadvantaged students as a central purpose of standards-based reform. Capacity The interview subjects viewed the states' capacity to carry out all the improvements envisioned in standards-based reform as the most significant challenge to improving equity and achieving its other goals, and workshop participants were quick to agree.
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From page 9... ...
As growing numbers of schools and districts fall short of the NCLB performance targets, the strains on personnel are increasing. Fully 25 percent of schools across the country fell short of adequate yearly progress targets in 2004-2005, and the numbers have been increasing since then, although Massell noted that that figure masks significant variation across states.
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From page 10... ...
Because everything -- including curriculum, textbooks, development of assessments, language for reporting results to the public -- flows from the standards, they need not only to be clearly written and concise, but also to reflect current understanding of how children learn and their conceptual development. They also need to provide guidance about the performance criteria for determining whether students have mastered particular standards and guidance about the relative importance of the different elements included.
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From page 11... ...
Michael Petrilli described an analysis conducted by the Fordham Foundation and the Northwest Evaluation Association to compare proficiency standards across states, and Peggy Carr described the results of an analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics of the relationship between proficiency standards for state assessments and those of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Content Standards Porter and his colleagues addressed the first question by analyzing state content standards in English/language arts/reading, mathematics, and science for grades K-8 (Porter, Polikoff, and Smithson, 2008)
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From page 12... ...
T The team also based their analysis on a methodology they developed for describing in detail what it is that teachers teach, which they call a three-dimensional content language. Although this methodology actually predated the standards-based reform movement, it has proved a useful tool for examining the content of state standards documents.
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From page 13... ...
For any pair of states for which they had data, the alignment for a particular standard can be calculated. Using averages of these results, they were also able to calculate alignment across and within grade levels.
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From page 14... ...
In other words, whichever areas show up as dark in the maps for both of the states being compared are ones that are emphasized in both states. One of the areas that showed up as strongly aligned for these two states, comprehension at the "explain" level of challenge, is shown in greater detail in the two fine-grained content maps in Figure 2-2.
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From page 15... ...
The repetition, Porter suggested, sends students the message: "Don't you dare learn this the first time we teach it; otherwise you are going to be bored out of your skull in the subsequent grades." Porter and colleagues did find some indication that a few core areas are covered more consistently across states than the overall alignment data would show -- or a small de facto common core curriculum. However, they also concluded that states' content standards are in general not focused on a few big ideas.
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From page 16... ...
TABLE 2-1 State-to-State Alignment, 4th and 8th Grade Standards for English/Language Arts/ Reading 16 SOURCE: Porter, Polikoff, and Smithson (2008, Table 1)
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From page 17... ...
To illustrate the kinds of differences these numbers represent, Petrilli provided two sample grade 4 items from the NWEA assessment, each with a difficulty level at the cut score of one of the states. For the Wisconsin cut score, which they had calculated at the 16th percentile on the NWEA scale, the sample item asked students to select from a group of sentences the one that "tells a fact, not an opinion." To represent the comparable cut score for Massachusetts, calculated at the 65th percentile, Petrilli showed an item that asked students to read a complex, difficult passage (excerpted from a work by Leo Tolstoy)
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18 3-3 Broadside 3rd Grade Reading Cut Scores 8th Grade Math Cut Scores FIGURE 2-3 Difference in difficulty of state tests. SOURCE: Petrilli (2008)
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From page 19... ...
He cautioned, however, that because they were working with percentiles, the change over time could be explained either by intentional shifts in cut scores or by changes in students' actual achievement levels. In terms of the last question, the vertical alignment of state standards, the analysis showed that they are not well calibrated, grade level to grade level.
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From page 20... ...
The results of these comparisons indicate striking discrepancies between the performance required for proficiency on state assessments and what is required for proficiency on NAEP assessments. These results have received significant public attention, and, as presenter Peggy Carr explained, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
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From page 21... ...
The results of this analysis were quite similar to the results of the Fordham/NWEA analysis. Generally, the researchers found that states' proficiency levels varied significantly and that the majority map onto the "below basic" range on the NAEP scale, although the distribution varied by subject and grade.
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From page 22... ...
. 3-6 FIGURE 2-7 A comparison of proficiency standards in grade 8 mathematics.
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From page 23... ...
Discussant Barbara Reys drew on her experiences co-chairing the standards development process for mathematics in Missouri to highlight some of the practical challenges of working toward common standards. Apart from the requirements of states that prize their autonomy, she noted the limitations of existing national standards, which may not be grade specific and lack other critical details.
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From page 24... ...
For Schmidt, this variation, which permeates the entire education system, is "the Achilles heel of the No Child Left Behind Act." Based on his analysis, he argued that the degree of variation in the opportunities children have to learn makes it inevitable that many will be left behind. Discussant Peter McWalters offered a perspective from Rhode Island, which has coordinated its standards development with two other states, New Hampshire and Vermont. Although the presentation suggested a number of questions for this consortium of states to ponder as they work to improve their standards, he labeled the effort a success and added that he would be happy to see a national model.
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From page 25... ...
Participants described legislators and other policy makers who have viewed the development of a new core curriculum or the raising of high school graduation standards as all that is required to pursue standards-based reform. Disputes over the significance of testing results, and the effects the reporting of these results can have, have further clouded the discussion.
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