Standards Based Reforms

Consider the following analogy: a school is a factory that takes raw materials (young students) and, through an intense process of manufacturing (instruction and assessment) churns out a finished product (educated pupils who are ready to function as responsible citizens of a democratic society). Now, suppose a quality control board (policy makers; the Department of Education; school reformers) oversees the manufacturing of the finished widgets, and is dissatisfied with the results being turned out at the factory after they have seen better widgets being turned out at other factories. After some debate, the board decides that they are going to explore the quality of the manufacturing process (instruction) as a means of turning out a better product, since this is the part of the process that they can control (in these factories, it is impossible to be selective about the raw materials that are used as inputs into the process). Through research and theory, the factories are able to decide exactly which attributes they want their finished widgets to possess. With a better idea of these desired attributes
(standards), the schools are able to change some of their approaches to instruction; hold instructors, administrators, and students (the “machinery” in this analogy) more accountable for the results; and create better ways to measure the progress they have made.

But what if the factory is turning out an inconsistent product? Some widgets are polished and well prepared to face the rigors of the real world; others are poorly manufactured and missing essential pieces needed to hold them together. Each widget goes through the same process at the factory, but there is debate as to whether this particular manufacturing process is the best option for all of the widgets being produced. Perhaps some widgets would respond better to an alternative manufacturing process, but the factory is set up in such a way that it is extremely difficult to carry out more than one method of manufacturing. Is it possible to use one method of manufacturing widgets that will help maintain the high quality and polished finish of some of the widgets, while improving the quality of the widgets that fail to meet final specifications? Such is the challenge that schools face in their attempts to use standards-based reform as a means of closing the achievement gap.

The reform of America’s public schools faces a big obstacle: the schools themselves, which have historically been local-run institutions, are not naturally connected to one another, and are, for the most part, analogous to isolated factories that happen to manufacture similar products. Each school (for the most part) has a unique student population, its own leadership and personalities, an isolated and freestanding physical structure, a unique community around it with unique issues, political climates, socioeconomic realities, and attitudes toward education. Each school is a small city in its own right, and each is as similar and as different from other schools as cities are from other cities. Because of the incredibly diverse nature of schools, standardizing education across the United States is a difficult challenge, but a worthwhile one. Standards-based reform, which has been America’s premier education strategy for the past two decades, seeks to tie classroom instruction to state-mandated learning standards, which point schools and districts in the directions that change should be focused. Furthermore, standards-based reform seeks to hold schools, educators, and students accountable for ensuring that students graduate from American schools with the proper knowledge and skills. The No Child Left Behind Act brought the federal government to the head of the board meeting table where local and state governments had previously sat. Although standards-based reforms have demonstrated positive gains and seem to be putting America’s schools on the right road, No Child Left Behind has received some flak for what many see as the federal government sticking their noses where they do not belong.

The issue of accountability is also an important question: are schools and educators more accountable for student achievement, or should the students themselves be held more accountable?
There are several potential benefits of standards-based reforms. These include, but are certainly not limited to: the establishment of a common national culture through American students’ required acquisition of certain predetermined important educational, social, and cultural values; a quantitative and objective system for measuring the quality of American schools relative to the schools of other countries; a means of holding students, teachers, and administrators accountable for the learning that goes on in school classrooms; a way for the public to monitor the progress of their tax dollars at work; a diagnostic tool for gauging the successes and failures of the various gears that make the schools run (teachers, students, districts, policies, etc.)

Although the workplace demands have a strong say as to what high school and college graduates must have in the way of minimum skills upon graduation, it is ultimately up to the schools themselves to decide and enforce the minimum requirements students need to achieve in order to graduate.