[RSCT] Fw: Teachers asked to join in Debate over National Standards

[Monty Neill]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anthony Cody" <anthony_cody at hotmail.com>
To: "EPATA" <epata at interversity.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 12:47 PM
Subject: [epata] Debate over National Standards



On the Teachers' Letters to Obama Facebook group I have been trying to move 
towards some consensus on the important concerns we share as teachers. One 
issue that has emerged is the stance we should take towards national 
standards. There is an active discussion there: 
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=166176941518&ref=ts

I posted the following on my blog, and would like to invite comments and 
dialogue at either location:

My blog: 
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2009/12/where_do_teachers_stand_on_sta.html

Where do Teachers Stand on Standards?


                          The
current push for national standards has teachers pulled in different
directions. Standards can be useful tools for classroom teachers. We
appreciate having a clear set of expectations for our students, and it
helps us to work with colleagues when we are all aligned towards the
same goals.

But eight years of No Child Left Behind has left many of us deeply
wary of the intrusion of reform schemes into our classrooms. And the
promise of national standards is usually linked to a case for national
standardized tests that will allow all our classrooms to be compared by
the same tests.






In the letters that I have been collecting to submit to President Obama and 
Secretary Duncan, (now downloadable here)
the most often expressed and deeply held belief is that we are
overemphasizing the importance of test scores, and this is having a
terrible effect on our students. But we do not seem to have consensus
as a profession about the role of national standards, so I would like
to offer my own concerns, and invite some more dialogue.



First of all, here in California, many of our standards have been
"raised" so that students in the third grade are supposed to learn
about the Periodic Table of Elements, and math content has been pushed
downwards so that younger students are expected to learn more. I fear
that national standards will spread this trend across the country,
because the National Governors' Association has promised the new
standards will be at least as "rigorous" as current state standards.


Second, the committee currently working on the standards has no
classroom teachers, and is dominated by people who work for the big
test publishers. How can these standards reflect what teachers know
about students and learning if we are excluded? (see a blog entry I posted 
on this subject back in July of this year.)

Third: The emphasis seems to be to prepare students for college
entrance exams. Only a third of our students graduate from college, so
why should we build a system that assumes its only purpose is college
preparation?


Fourth: The real purpose of national standards is to provide the
basis for national standardized tests. National standards seem likely
to intensify all the pressure we currently face to prepare students to
take tests by allowing every student in the nation to be compared on
the same test.



Fifth: We have heard rhetoric about national competitiveness for
decades. In 1983 we were warned by the "Nation At Risk" report that our
country was going to be overtaken by foreign competitors such as the
Japanese. Then we had two decades of economic growth in the US, while
the Japanese economy went completely stagnant. As Yong Zhao has pointed
out, the strength of our economy and our culture is our creativity and
diversity. Trying to make everyone meet the same standard is a dead end
culturally and economically. (note: an excellent new interview with
Yong Zhao on this subject in PDK can be downloaded here for free.)



What do you think? Will national standards help us teach better? Or
will they make the tests even more pervasive in our schools?


Anthony Cody

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