Here’s an interesting article by Hess on state proficiency standards. Considering the potential problems posed by each of the fifty states having different academic achievement standards, I thought this might be relevant to our discussion about preparing students for a globally competitive marketplace.
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Wow, that's sort of depressing, but not surprising; except that I was a little surprised to see California near the top of the chart on the level of standards. (I don't know what the percentage of students proficient is...but at least the standards are not too far off the NAEP, equated in the article as "world-class" standards.) It only deals with 4th and 8th grade, though. I wonder about high school proficiencies...I have a hard time believing, for example, that the CAHSEE is a "world-class" standard.
But the whole article paints a sort of grim picture of one of the things that's wrong with education in America. For whatever reason--to protect students' self-esteem or our national sense of competence--there has been this tendency to make things fuzzier and softer; to dumb them down. The fact that Georgia's standards are 4 standard deviations below South Carolina's is appalling.
Four standard deviations in adult American male height, for example, is about 11 inches. The average height is about 5'9"...so 4 standard deviations lower is 4'10".
That's analogous to the difference in the level of standards set in South Carolina versus Georgia.
If America hopes to be successful in the economy of the flattening world, this appalling disparity needs to be addressed. We need to set proficiencies where they need to be, even if, as the article says, that means most students aren't proficient. But pushing the proficiency level down to student performance, as has been done for so long, is obviously the wrong approach.
For us at Charter, the lesson to take from this--which is one we already know, but this drives home how critical it is--is that we must continue to raise the bar; and never, NEVER, lower it.
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