Science Magazine -- States Urged to Sign Up for a Higher Standard of Learning

Dodd introduces national educational standards
by: joesaho
Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 14:56:47 PM EST

(Dodd's part is interesting, but read through to the extended text for discussion on education, science proficiency, and class issues. - promoted by mattw)Currently, No Child Left Behind mandates states conduct testing to measure schools' performances, but it allows states to use their own criteria for evaluation. A news item in the current issue of Science magazine (subscription or institutional access required)describes how Mississippi was able to show improvement without actually improving students' proficiency:

Mississippi education officials patted themselves on the back in 2005 when state-administered tests showed that 53% of the state's 8th graders were proficient in math--a jump of 14 percentage points in the 3 years since federal mandates for improving school performance went into effect. But a few months later, a nonbinding, nationwide evaluation found that only 13% of that cohort were proficient, ranking Mississippi last on the country's math scorecard. The discrepancy--a product of standards that reflect the state's low expectations for student achievement in math--earned Mississippi a "cream puff" award from an education journal published by Stanford's Hoover Institution.
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The tremendous variation in what a state teaches and the way it measures how well children are learning has triggered a move for national standards and assessments in elementary and secondary school science and math education. Last month, two legislators long active in education reform--Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)--introduced a bill to create and implement a set of voluntary national standards in math and science. A week later, a panel reporting to the policymaking body that oversees the National Science Foundation went further, calling not just for national standards but also for national assessments of student achievement in science and math and national certification for teachers in those fields. "Currently, we have states adopting less-than-rigorous standards to game the system," says Shirley Malcom, co-chair of the National Science Board's Commission on 21st Century Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and head of education and human resources programs at AAAS (publisher of Science). "As a nation, we need to drive a stake in the ground and say this cannot go on."

joesaho :: Dodd introduces national educational standards
NSF and AAAS are not sham science groups - they're the real deal and are genuinely interested improving science education not only for future scientists and engineers, but for the general public as well. On the other hand, the Chamber of Commerce(the anti-minimum wage, pro-free trade, anti-regulation group that spends more on lobbying than any other) would qualify as a sham group in my book when it comes to education:

"The Administration maintains its commitment to local control and supports state development of content standards and assessments," says Chad Colby, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education. Adds Jacque Johnson of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: "We are not encouraging consideration of national standards because it would become a distraction from moving forward on reauthorizing NCLB this year."

Parents, teachers and many in the public know that NCLB is a fraud. It's part of a pattern that comes from the conservative self-fulfilling vision of government failure(see Rajiv Chandrasenkarian's book about Iraq, or think of Grover Norquist's line about drowning the government in the tub superimposed with images of Katrina). The rub is that as officials can cite "improving performance", Bush can continue to hold up NCLB as a standard and say it's working, when it is actually diverting resources away from the students who need them the most. An education system run by conservatives will only fail the children, because it's designed to fail and apply excessive burdens on states and localities.

What's the alternative? To start, a progressive vision of education in this country would be based on equal standards to identify inequalities, and the use this information to fix the problem, rather than whitewash it.

Dodd's bill, called the Standards to Provide Educational Achievement for Kids (SPEAK) Act, would provide states with a financial incentive to adopt voluntary national standards developed by the National Assessments Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The legislation creates a $400 million fund that would provide competitive grants to interested states for implementing the core standards and then reward states that do. SPEAK would also extend by up to 4 years the 2014 deadline for every student to reach an acceptable level of learning.

The architects of the legislation argue that it will not only improve the quality of science and math education but also help the country deliver on its promise of equal opportunity. "As a result of varied standards, exams, and proficiency levels, America's highly mobile student-aged population moves through the nation's schools gaining widely varying levels of knowledge, skills, and preparedness," Dodd says. "Voluntary, core American standards [will ensure] that all American students are given the same opportunity to learn to a high standard no matter where they reside."

One thing to note is that educational deficiencies are sometimes invoked as a faulty boogeyman/excuse in the free trade argument - see Sirota's take. It should be obvious that marketplace competitiveness is caused primarily by trade policy, not educational policy. However, when you consider educational disparities within the US (Mississippi versus California, Hartford versus West Hartford), I think it's clear that John Edwards' "Two Americas" meme applies here, and we can make a case for educational fairness and fair trade as separate issues (with shared progressive values). I think we can frame the educational debate as one of fairness and equal access, not to mention the fact that we want an educational system that works. Good to see that Dodd is introducing something that takes steps in that direction.