Higher achievement
means setting standards early
By Tamara Henry
USA Today
Mon., Feb. 23, 1998
"Why don't you think middle schools work?"
WASHINGTON -- Academic standards have become the rallying point of American
education. Governors are prodding schools to set benchmarks for what students
should know. And, business leaders are pressuring students for results.
Yet Marc Tucker, considered the guru of standards-based education, says
those efforts alone will not be enough to get students to accelerate to
much higher achievement. He wants ``a revolution'': abolition of comprehensive
or ``shopping mall'' high schools; expansion of elementary schools to include
middle schools; reduction of K-2 classes to 12 students; and assignment
of European-style ``class teachers'' to the same students for three years
at a time.
Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy and
co-author of Standards
for Our Schools: How to Set Them, Measure Them, and Reach Them (Jossey-Bass,
$25), recently discussed with USA TODAY the difficulty states are having
in setting rigorous standards.
Q. Nearly every state has set or is producing standards. How impressed
are you with the states' efforts?
A. States have a long way to go. We give them an ``A'' for having standards,
and that really is an achievement considering the political context in the
last few years. But the quality of the standards has a long way to go. One
of the problems of state standards, as well as many others, is that when
you get a group of people together . . . they all want to put in their favorite
thing. The result is you get standards that simply can't be taught in the
time that's available to teach them. So the teacher is once again left with
the choice of what to teach. Another problem is that for most of these standards
there is not a good balance among the basic skills, conceptual understanding
and applications. Conceptual understanding is really important because .
. . that enables you to solve a problem that doesn't look just like the
problem at the end of the chapter. You really have to understand the subject
and not just memorize the definitions, algorithms and do procedures.
Probably the most serious problem with the standard is that they're not
performance standards. What we mean is they (should) have a statement of
what the student is supposed to know and be able to do, followed by . .
. examples of student work that actually meets that standard, followed by
a commentary that explains why the work meets the standards.
Q. You propose eliminating comprehensive high schools, which offer
a wide range of activities and programs, from preschools, nurseries, band
and sports to drivers' education and programs in prevention of violence,
substance abuse and pregnancies. Why doesn't this work?
A. We looked at the comprehensive high schools around the country and concluded
there isn't any way in the world that they can (work effectively). People
have asked the comprehensive high schools to be almost everything to almost
everybody. Given the demands of modern work, it is pretty clear that a serious
professional and technical program of instruction requires highly skilled
teachers and specialized equipment in one area of instruction after another.
There are very few high schools in the country that can afford to build
that kind of faculty, assemble that kind of equipment, make the kinds of
relationships with employees for work study programs that are needed to
give those kids that kind of skill and run a serious academic program at
the same time.
We would set up the high schools so that every kid goes somewhere.
After two years, at age 16, students would be tested on whether they have
met an internationally benchmarked standard of accomplishment in core academic
subjects. If there's proof the student is ready for entry-level jobs or
for doing college-level work, he or she gets a ``certificate of initial
mastery.'' The student then enters an apprenticeship program or begins a
rigorous college preparatory program.
Q. The College Board suggests that kids are beginning to take tougher
courses. Are you suggesting, by restructuring schools, that it's not working
right now?
A. I think there is some evidence that kids are taking tougher courses,
but our analysis of this is that it needs to be not a slow improvement but
a dramatic improvement in student performance. That is going to take some
major structural changes. Think about it from the student standpoint. Only
the kids who are planning to go to selective colleges have any reason to
take a tough course or to study hard. What the other kids have been told
. . . is that all you need to do to get a job or to go to college is a high
school diploma. And they'd actually be a fool to take a tough course because
then they might flunk it and put in jeopardy their chance of getting a job
or going to college.
Q. Why don't you think middle schools
work?
A. I think the evidence on that is pretty strong. What the data show is
that, on average, there is a steady increase in academic achievement through
the elementary school years, then it flattens out or even in some cases
declines in the middle school years and picks up again in high school. That's
not an institution any of us would choose to put our kids in if we had a
choice. From the standpoint of a lot of teachers and observers, the middle
school lacks the warmth of the elementary school and lacks the academic
rigor of the high school. You've got the worst of both possible worlds.
From another standpoint, when kids go off into middle school, they typically
enter an organization that is much more anonymous than the elementary school
at the very time they are the most susceptible to all the influences that
worry parents to death. What we are saying is why not keep the student in
his or her neighborhood school?
Q. Has it been difficult to get parents to buy into the idea of
national academic standards?
A. Yes, but I think school people, a lot of them, think that if you don't
talk about standards there aren't any. But . . . the world has standards
for these kids; they can't escape those standards. All the kids go out into
one labor market; they go out into one higher education market. If they
don't stack up, they don't stack up. They are not protected by not having
standards in school. Standards are going to be good for everyone, without
question. But they will do the most good for the kids who have the least
because they will, for the first time, make it clear to the kid what the
standard is.
##
Read a story about Tucker: "Push
is on to expand standards-based education reform"