The EDifierMarch 10, 2010 Earlier today, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA) released a draft of the K-12 common standards. All but two states (Alaska and Texas) have signed onto the common core standards initiative but this is our first look at the proposed K-12 standards. And if you have an opinion, CCSSO and NGA would like your feedback.
Before you do, check out the Center’s A new conversation on national standards? to gain the inside scoop on the ins and outs of national standards. –Jim Hull
March 3, 2010 “College and career readiness” has been the buzz phrase in education here in the early part of 2010. The Council of Chief Staff School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA) have been leading the effort to create common standards based on college and career readiness, and President Obama has pushed to revamp the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as No Child Left Behind, or NCLB) to focus on getting all students college and career ready. Now Achieve, Inc has released its 5th annual Closing the Expectations Gap report on how each of the 50 states have been doing in aligning their high school policies with the demands of college and careers.
Nearly all states (48) have signed onto the CCSSO/NGA common standards project. However, according to Achieve, 31 states already have, or will have in the near future, college and career ready standards in math and English. This is up from three states just five years ago. So states have made tremendous progress in a short amount of time.
Furthermore, Achieve also reports that 21 states have established high school graduation requirements that require all students to complete a curriculum that will prepare them for college or the workplace. The curriculums require students to complete 4 years of English and 4 years of math, of which at least one course must be to the level of Algebra II.
Other findings include:
- 14 states administer high school assessments that postsecondary institutions use to make decisions about students’ readiness for college.
- For example, Michigan and Illinois require all high school students to take the ACT college entrance exam.
- 16 states have data systems in place that are able to connect students’ K-12 data to their postsecondary data. However, all other states are working to put such a data system in place.
- Only 1 state–Texas—has a comprehensive college and career ready accountability system.
If, when ESEA gets reauthorized, the focus turns to “college and career readiness,” states have already started in that direction. However, most would have a long road ahead of them, especially in developing college and career ready assessments and developing an accountability system geared towards college and career readiness. – Jim Hull
For more information on the importance of college and career readiness in the 21st century check out the Center’s Defining a 21st Century Education.
January 14, 2010 It’s officially the start of the new year. EdWeek has released its annual Quality Counts report, which has ushered in the new year for the past 13 years. As in the past, it starts off the year in education with a bang by grading states on their education policies and performance.
This year’s valedictorian: Maryland, which earned a B-plus across the six indicators of performance and policies for which states were evaluated.
Does this mean that Maryland has the best schools? Not necessarily. Several organizations rank states on their educational quality, and each has its own way of doing so. Seeing your state ranked high in one report but low another is awfully confusing. To find out why rankings may differ, check out the Center’s Round-up of national education report cards.
However, the real story in this year’s edition is how states are dealing with national common standards movement. Some of the key findings include:
- Most states have looked to other states when developing and revising their academic standards, but few states have compared or benchmarked their standards to other countries’ standards.
- Many states see significant challenges in developing common standards. States are concerned about:
- The high level of stakeholder input and support needed to move the common-standards movement forward in their states (18 states).
- Disruptions to ongoing state efforts (17 states)
- Misalignment between state expectations and common standards (16 states)
- Insufficient quality, content, or rigor of common standards (14 states)
- Complex testing and accountability implementation (14 states)
- States are less concerned about the impact common standards will have on local control or about any difficulties due to the initiative’s aggressive timeline.
For information on the arguments for and against common standards, check out the Center’s A new national conversation about standards. –Jim Hull
October 29, 2009 I got an e-mail earlier today with the subject line “States have lowered ‘proficiency’ bar under NCLB.” Of course that caught my eye, so I went in for a closer look.
What I found was that the e-mail was based on a report released earlier today by National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Mapping State Proficiency Standards onto NAEP Scales: 2005-2007. I had written about a similar report NCES released two years ago, based on 2005 NAEP scores, so I went to check out this latest version.
What I found did not quite match the gloomy headline. When comparing the rigor of each state’s standard for proficiency, only a handful of states lowered their standards in a particular subject. Eighth grade math had the most states that decreased their standards (9 states). But at the same time, three states increased the rigor of their standards. Not exactly a mass lowering of standards.
We are right to be concerned about states lowering standards. However, the question should be whether states have the right standards, not whether they have been increased or decreased.
A state may have such high standards that they are unreachable by most students. While it’s good to have a high goal, standards need to be reachable to be effective. Also, a state may have increased its standards but if it is starting off with very low standards, it still may be expecting much less of their students than the state that lowered its standards. So when comparing state standards, don’t get caught up in whether they increased or decreased. Rather, determine whether the standards ask enough of their students so they will be prepared for life after high school.
On that note here are some other findings from the report.
- The differences where states set their proficiency standards vary greatly.
- The difference in scores between the states with the five highest and lowest standards is comparable to the difference in scores between NAEP’s Basic and Proficient levels.
- States set lower standards for proficiency in reading
- In grade four reading, thirty-one states set their standards for proficiency below NAEP’s Basic level.
- At the eighth-grade level, fifteen states did the same.
- States had higher standards for proficiency in math than in reading.
- At the fourth grade level, just seven states set their proficiency standard below NAEP’s Basic level
- Eight states did so at the eighth-grade level.
- States with higher standards for proficiency had fewer students scoring proficient on state tests.
- States were more likely to have decreased their standards in the eighth grade than in fourth grade.
- At the fourth-grade level, twelve states substantively changed their reading assessment between 2005 and 2007. Of those twelve, four states increased their standards, four states decreased their standard, and the other four kept the rigor basically the same.
- However, at the eighth-grade level fourteen states substantively changed their reading assessment between 2005 and 2007. Seven of those states decreased the rigor of their standards, while the other seven kept the rigor relatively the same.
- Similar results were found in math.
Keep in mind:
- NAEP does not necessarily define proficiency the same as states do.
- NAEP defines Proficiency as: Competency over challenging subject matter, not grade-level performance.
- NAEP defines Basic as: Partial mastery of skills necessary for Proficient performance.
- No country, not even the highest performing countries, would have 100 percent of their students reach NAEP’s Proficiency level.
- Some leading assessment experts have stated that proficiency for accountability purposes probably lies somewhere between NAEP’s Basic and Proficient levels.
For more information on how NAEP’s proficiency levels compare to state’s check out the Center for Public Education’s The proficiency debate: A guide to NAEP achievement levels. –Jim Hull
September 21, 2009 CCSSO and NGA are inviting public comment on the draft common core standards, which were made available online today. The proposed English language arts and math standards are intended to be voluntary and benchmarked to the expectations in high-achieving countries as well as top-performing states. Feedback is invited from anyone interested in public education so make your voices heard here.
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