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Remarks of M. Hayes Mizell on February 7, 2000 at the Twelfth Annual America's At-Risk Youth National Forum. The theme of the Forum was "Raising Standards, Strengthening Interventions: No Student Left Behind." The Forum was sponsored by the National Dropout Prevention Center Network and was held in Myrtle Beach, SC. Approximately 300 educators and youth workers attended the meeting. Mizell is Director of the Program for Student Achievement at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.

Watching for Mr. Hyde

By now, nearly everyone has heard of "the standards movement." I assume most of you are here because you are concerned about standards, how states and school systems are using them, and their effects on vulnerable students. I want to be clear from the outset that I believe standards can benefit the students all of us care about, those who schools have too often written off as unmotivated, untalented, and even uneducable. This will only occur, however, if states and school systems use standards to improve the performance of teachers and principals, not just the performance of students.

Let me explain. As a concept, standards are easy to understand. They are simply statements, usually broad statements, of what students should know and be able to do as a result of their schooling. Standards are attempts to describe both the knowledge students should acquire and how students should apply that knowledge.

I hope we can agree that this development is long overdue. For many, many years students and their families have been unclear about what students should be learning, particularly when students get beyond elementary school. If a parent enrolled their child in the sixth grade and asked the principal, "What can I reasonably expect my child to know and be able to do by the time she completes the eighth grade?," most school administrators could not answer that question. Even though 49 states have now developed academic standards and expect school systems and schools to use them, it would be interesting to know how many principals could answer that question even today.

Nevertheless, the purpose of content standards is to define and disseminate a common set of educational expectations for all students. This differs dramatically from past practice. For many years it was individual teachers who determined what students should know and be able to do. Teachers used textbooks in ways that made them, de facto, the standards. Whatever the textbook included, or whatever portion of the textbook the teacher covered during a school year, represented what the teacher expected students to learn.

The problem with this approach was not only that different teachers in different school systems used different textbooks of different quality, but also that the teachers covered different amounts of material in different degrees of depth. One social studies teacher might spend six weeks on the Civil War because he liked the Civil War, while another teacher might devote six weeks to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because she thought they were important. In other words, there was no consensus about what it was important for students to know and be able to do.

A rigged system

Even after school systems emphasized curriculum development and states disseminated curriculum frameworks to provide teachers guidance in the material they should cover, many teachers continued to emphasize what was interesting to them, or what they felt comfortable teaching. Compounding this problem was that regardless of the subject content teachers taught, they used different criteria for assessing student performance. The letter or numerical grade they awarded was based on criteria known only to the teacher. One teacher of low-performing students might choose to give them a satisfactory grade because the students tried hard or turned in their assignments on time, even if their work was otherwise unsatisfactory. Another teacher of the same students might choose to place greater emphasis on the quality of the students' work. As a result, the second teacher might give the students a lower grade than the first teacher. Alternately, the teacher might use the students' unsatisfactory work to re-teach the lesson on which the she based the assignment and then provide additional opportunities for the students to demonstrate what they had learned.

The variations in what teachers taught and the criteria they used to determine if students had learned it demonstrated that for many students the educational process was a rigged system. Students did not know what they were supposed to learn. They did not know whether what they were learning was comparable to what other students in other places were learning. They did not know what represented quality work.

This was a system that did not provide many students the clear academic goals they needed and in some students it produced the frustration and anger that led them to drop out of school. Quite literally, they could not figure out how schools worked, or why the educational process was so cloaked in mystery. The system also worked to the great disadvantage of students who families lacked the knowledge, power, confidence, or options to compensate for and overcome these obstacles.

Other families who were more advantaged worked to get their children in the classrooms and schools with teachers who had high internal standards. These were teachers with high expectations for what students should learn, who challenged students to master difficult content, and who demanded high levels of student performance. The purpose of standards, therefore, should be to level the playing the field so that all students are participating in a fair and equitable educational process.

Standards should be clear enough and disseminated widely enough that there are equal opportunities for students and their families to understand what the students should know and be able to do.

This is why at the beginning of each school year the Corpus Christi, Texas school system publishes and sends to the families of every student a booklet setting forth the standards for the core subjects at every grade level. All teachers in all schools should base their instruction on the same standards that apply to all students. This is why the Corpus Christi school system is also using a standards-based report card that both focuses teachers' instruction on helping students perform at standard and helps families understand students' progress towards meeting the standards.

Standards should cause teachers to develop and use common criteria for assessing the quality of student work. This is why more teachers are using rubrics that set forth specific criteria for assessing the quality of all students' work, and why some teachers are also engaging students in developing the rubrics so the students know and understand the grading criteria.

Two ways of thinking about and using standards

My description of standards may surprise you. You may be wondering why I have said nothing about standards as they are so often described by the news media, policymakers, and politicians. I have not done so, in part, because standards are about much more than cut scores on tests. I want you to understand that there are, in effect, two ways of thinking about and using standards. Think of it as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or to paraphrase the slogan from the Broadway show, "It's such a fine line between a good policy and bad." Standards as I have described them are like Dr. Jekyll -- gentle, intellectual, and risk-taking. Standards as many people talk about them are like Mr. Hyde --menacing and dangerous.

It is this latter incarnation that is seductive. Many policymakers begin with the assumption that it is necessary to tell educators what they should teach and what students should learn. There is good reason for them to think so.

Our society and economy is becoming increasingly complex. If today's students who will enter the workplace during the next decade are going to be independent and productive adults, they will have to know more than you and I know and be able to apply their knowledge more effectively. To adapt successfully throughout their working lives, they will have to know how to continue to learn, at a much faster rate than has been the case for you and me.

It is not fair to students to throw them into an educational system where every teacher is doing his or own thing, with different expectations for different students.

It is not fair to students to throw them into an educational system where every teacher is doing his or own thing, with different expectations for different students. All students can perform at significantly higher levels, and standards can provide the framework for them to do so. Because there is little evidence to suggest that schools will reform themselves to expect and support higher levels of performance from all students, policymakers have embraced standards as a remedy. But it is not quite that simple.

Even though every state but one has adopted content standards, not all of the standards are of equal quality. There are strong differences of opinion about what students should know and be able to do. The American Federation of Teachers has analyzed the standards of every state that has them and has concluded that while twenty-two states "have standards that are generally clear and specific and grounded in particular content, most states continue to have more difficulty setting clear and specific standards in English and social studies than in math and science." Another organization, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, has also analyzed all the state standards but has reached the pessimistic conclusion that for most subject areas, "42 states still hold mediocre or inferior expectations for their K-12 students." It appears that not all states' standards meet the criteria of the AFT and the Fordham Foundation for what constitute quality standards.

A broken link between standards and testing

Once states adopt standards, they are faced with how to determine whether students can meet them. This brings us to the issue of tests. The respected periodical Education Week reports that even though 41 states have tests in at least one subject that is closely matched to their standards only 21 states have tests that assess student performance in relation to all four core content subjects-mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies.

As is true with most every aspect of standards, the tests themselves are not free of scrutiny. Education Week reports that "while 37 states this school year will administer assessments that contain more than multiple-choice questions, only 10 go so far as to ask that students maintain portfolios of written projects or write extended responses to questions in subjects other than English." The periodical concludes "that many states have a long way to go before students in elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools are all given tests that incorporate performance tasks and measure state standards."

This brings us to the issue of accountability. If the first step is to set expectations by requiring school systems to use state standards, and if the second step is to determine whether students perform at standard by requiring school systems to use state tests, then what is the incentive for educators and students to take standards and assessments seriously? The American Federation of Teachers finds that 13 states have promotion policies related to students progressing towards performing at standard, and 14 states have exit exams aligned to tenth grade standards or higher. The Fordham Foundation finds just five states it believes combine strong standards with strong accountability. Four of the five are in the South: Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. Education Week reports that 18 states have " the legal authority to close, take over, or reconstitute the staffs of failing schools."

Standards are here to stay

You can see that the "standards movement" is not monolithic. Different states are implementing standards, standards-based tests, and standards-based accountability differently and with varying degrees of quality. However, it would be a mistake to believe that these trends have come to an end, or will do so in the near future. To the contrary, it appears that over time the standards will become more definitive and useful, more tests in more subject areas will be more tightly aligned with the standards, and more states will implement accountability systems to give teeth to the standards and the tests.

One can find many things wrong with the elements of the standards movement I have described. Each component has its Jekyll and Hyde features. Standards can provide useful direction for what all teachers should teach and all students should learn, but the standards may be difficult for teachers to understand, or teachers may not know how to use them effectively, or the standards may not be sufficiently challenging. The tests should provide useful information about students' progress towards performing at standard, but they may not be aligned to the standards or they may emphasize convenience of administration and scoring over an assessment of students' authentic performance. The accountability systems should cause educators and students to take the standards seriously, but they may be so high stakes that they distort the educational process, causing educators to focus more on preparing students for the test than on engaging students in deeper, more challenging learning experiences.

To date, it appears that policymakers and politicians are more interested in using standards as a club for compliance than as a light towards better teaching and learning. It seems that toughness is the value they want to communicate, apparently assuming that it is possible to force educators and students into higher levels of performance.

Yes, it is true that many students and families have not taken education and tests as seriously as they should, and there is merit in accountability systems that focus students on taking greater advantage of educational opportunities. It is also true that in many school systems the accountability systems have had the effect of causing states and schools to pay much more attention to low-performing students. Twenty-nine states have intervention programs that target funds specifically to assist students who have difficulty making progress towards performing at standard.

Almost entirely due to the standards and the accountability systems, many schools now provide additional time and support for struggling students. The modes for doing so include zero periods, after school programs, Saturday school, standards-based summer school, and tutoring. This is in sharp contrast to the recent past when schools did not hesitate to promote students to the next grade even though they were functioning at unacceptable levels of academic proficiency.

However, as far as I know, no one is documenting whether the scope or intensity of these interventions is adequate to serve all the students who need them, or whether students who participate in the interventions subsequently go on to perform at standard, remain in school, and graduate. We also need to know much more about which interventions are most effective in addressing which needs of which students.

Too many of the standards-based accountability systems place on students the primary burden to perform at standard, without comparable burdens falling on schools.

School systems are not routinely collecting, analyzing and publishing this information, and few newspapers are covering this dimension of the standards-testing-accountability story. In spite of the positive effects of the interventions , too many of the standards-based accountability systems place on students the primary burden to perform at standard, without comparable burdens falling on schools. If students do not perform satisfactorily on the state tests, the consequences are swift and powerful; the students may not move on to the next grade or graduate.

For those schools where many students do not perform satisfactorily, there may be consequences but they are more likely to be more indirect. The school's test scores or ranking on the state performance index may be published in the newspaper, or the school may be placed on the state's watch list, or it may be visited by a technical assistance team from the state department of education, or perhaps the school system will remove the school's principal. Rarely, however, does the school experience the same pressures as students to improve its performance in the near term. Students that do not perform at standard are not promoted, but teachers who do not perform at the levels necessary to cause students to perform at standard continue to teach much in the same ways as they have in the past, with the same results.

This is where the Dr. Jekyll of standards becomes the Mr. Hyde. For many students who have difficulty performing at standard, they are not likely to do so unless their teachers become more knowledgeable about and comfortable with the content they teach, and much more skillful in engaging students in learning that content. Yet, the rhetoric and the accountability that accompanies standards emphasizes that it is students who must reform their attitudes, behaviors, motivation, and use of time. Of course, it is easy to take this position because students have no voice and no power and, in fact, more students do have to take their education more seriously.

Educators must be held as accountable as students

But educators need to reform their attitudes and behaviors as well. They need to take initiative to master the content they teach and learn and use more effective pedagogy. They need to take initiative to structure their schools to develop closer and more supportive relationships with their students, to create more time for student learning in the core content subjects, and to collaborate with their colleagues in high quality staff development at the school site. They need to take initiative to identify, adapt, and apply the experiences of other schools that are succeeding in spite of demographic factors that usually correlate with low achievement. It is not only students who have to change.

The fact that educators are so slow to reform their practice is not entirely their fault. Policymakers are quick to enact laws and regulations telling educators what to do, but they devote little attention and money to helping educators learn how to do it. It is not surprising that they have followed this pattern in implementing standards and accountability. Policymakers know they want a different result from the educational process, and they are right to expect it, but they have not demonstrated much sensitivity to the changes educators must make to achieve that result.

Policymakers know they want a different result from the
educational process, and they are right to expect it, but they
have not demonstrated much sensitivity to the changes that
educators must make to achieve that result.

Implementing standards, for example, is not simply a matter of following new guidelines about what to teach, or posting the standards on the classroom wall. Teachers have to understand the standards, truly understand them and make them their own. Teachers have to believe, truly believe that with their help nearly all their students can eventually meet the standards. They have to throw out old curricula that is not standards-based and does not help students develop the knowledge and skills they need to perform at standard. Teachers then have to develop or select new curricula that helps students achieve that goal. They have to learn how to develop lessons and assignments tightly linked to the standards, and learn how to develop and use rubrics to improve the quality of students' work. Teachers have to become more skilled in assessing each student's performance for the specific purpose of obtaining data that will inform both the teacher and the student about the student's progress towards achieving the standards.

None of this is easy; nor does it come naturally to any educator. It requires time, support, and consistent effort. Yet, policymakers do not explicitly expect educators to develop these skills, nor do they provide the resources and oversight to encourage them to do so. They leave it to educators to figure it out for themselves.

The result is predictable: educators are resentful, they ignore standards and take their chances with the accountability system, placing most of the burden on students, and they grow more discouraged and resistant to change, even if they know change is necessary. Where, then, does that leave us? It seems that standards are here to stay, as they should be. Thoughtfully conceived, conscientiously implemented, and carefully evaluated, they can benefit students and education. But those three modifiers -- thoughtful, conscientious, careful -- do not describe the policy or political environment in which most educators operate. What begins as Dr. Jekyll often turns into Mr. Hyde.

It's time to put the standards movement to the test

We have yet to see whether the standards movement will help or harm public education but I believe that we should not yet reject or condemn it. What is needed, it seems to me, is for us to subject the standards movement to the ultimate assessment by seeking answers to these questions:

Are there growing numbers of schools and school systems where each year ever-increasing proportions of students move out of the bottom achievement quartile?

Each year is there an increasing percentage of the eighth grade student cohort that remains in school and completes the twelfth grade?

Each year are more students passing challenging, standards-based state tests for the eighth grade and going on to enroll in more challenging high school courses that lead to post-secondary education?

Each year are more students at all grade levels passing the standards-based assessments and are fewer students retained in grade or participating in special intervention programs?

Are schools changing to challenge all students, even those scoring at the 80th percentile and above, to perform at higher levels?

Are communities and school systems holding principals and teachers accountable, as well as students, to learn more and more effectively apply what they learn?

Are policymakers at national, state, and local levels devoting more effort to increasing educators' capacities to cause students to perform at standard?

Are schools becoming much more sophisticated in understanding and increasing the authentic performance levels of their students, and much less terrified of the state test?

When there is ample evidence to answer these questions in the affirmative, we will know the standards movement is producing results commensurate with its potential. In the meantime, remember that it is the voice of students that is missing at the policy tables. It is important to collect, analyze, and report quantitative, qualitative, and even anecdotal information about the effects of standards on all students, particularly those at the academic and social margins of schools, and then bring this information to the attention of school board members and state legislators.

We can be hopeful that the standards movement will benefit students, but we must watch for Dr. Hyde.