Thomas B. Fordham Institute - Advancing Educational Excellence

The State of State Standards 2006

August 29, 2006

by Chester E. Finn, Jr., Michael J. Petrilli, Liam Julian

* notes that states have updated these standards since our last review.

Two-thirds of schoolchildren in America attend class in states with mediocre (or worse) expectations for what their students should learn. That's just one of the findings of Fordham's The State of State Standards 2006, which evaluates state academic standards. The average state grade is a "C-minus"--the same as six years earlier, even though most states revised their standards since 2000.

Does this make the case for national standards? See our other new report, To Dream the Impossible Dream: Four Approaches to National Standards and Tests, to find out.

Read Chester E. Finn, Jr.'s August 31, 2006, testimony before the No Child Left Behind Commission on this topic.

Read the media release for both reports.

Contents

It Takes a Vision: How Three States Created Great Academic Standards

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Standards-based education reform involves many elements-testing, accountability systems, cut scores, to name but a few--but the success of each ultimately rests upon getting state academic  standards right. So far, however, the states that have produced exemplary standards are greatly outnumbered by those whose standards are weak, nebulous, watered-down, content-free or otherwise unable to bear a real burden.

Perhaps a dozen states have good standards in one or two subjects, but just three states--California, Massachusetts, and Indiana--have consistently produced top-flight K-12 standards across the curriculum. The question is, How did they do it?

It's no secret what causes most jurisdictions to botch the job: overreliance on faulty national standards; the exclusion of real subject-matter experts from the standards-writing process; an obsession with vast committees and "stakeholder consensus." But California, Massachusetts, and Indiana avoided these traps because they had visionary leaders--and bare-knuckled infighters with thick skins--who exploited unique political opportunities to fight for and pass top-flight standards. This is their story.

In Massachusetts, an equity lawsuit in the early 1990s forced the legislature to address school funding issues. Sensing an opportunity, reform-minded leaders, headed by businessman Jack Rennie, offered the education establishment a deal: more money in return for real reform. The massive funding increase for schools softened what would otherwise have been stiff opposition to standards-based reform.

In California, reform leaders such as Governor Pete Wilson and reading activist Marion Joseph got a boost in 1994 when their state received the lowest reading scores in the union on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). That shock weakened the influence of progressive educators who had dominated the Department of Education and paved the way for Sacramento to institute statewide standards and testing to monitor what students were learning.

And Indiana, which had lost thousands of high-paying, low-skill factory jobs, was also shaken by national reports criticizing its schools. Leaders such as higher education commissioner Stan Jones turned to out-of-state experts to help turn things around.

To be sure, these visionaries and fighters had lots of help. In each state, the governor and key legislators worked across party lines to make first-class standards a reality. The state boards of education took a strong leadership role in Massachusetts and California, and the governor's Education Roundtable did much the same in Indiana.

Teacher unions in all three states chose not to oppose rigorous standards, in part because they realized that more funding for schools hinged on reform. Eventually, many union leaders came to believe that clear standards would help teachers understand what they were expected to do.

Urban superintendents also climbed aboard the standards' train. Some believed that higher standards would lead to more money; others were simply sick of the cloudy, mediocre status quo. Like teachers, they wanted clarity.

As progressives in state education departments were outmaneuvered (or beaten to a pulp) by more traditional education thinkers, reformers also brought in reading researchers, math professors, Nobel laureates, and consultants with benchmarking expertise. Each of these states tried to learn from others--and from high-scoring Asian and European nations. Nobody in these states tried to learn from education school professors.

Pockets of resistance can still be found in these states in affluent suburban districts and university education departments, where progressives maintain bastions. But, for the most part, "major combat" has ended in the standards battle even as fighting rages over testing and accountability.

In Massachusetts, the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) is under constant attack. Students in the class of 2006 had to pass the tenth grade MCAS to earn a high school diploma. "Half of teachers believe there should be no graduation requirement," says Kathleen Kelley, who headed the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers until June 2006. "The rest say the test shouldn't be the only measure."

Indiana's testing system is markedly weaker than its standards and new fights have broken out over "cut scores"--how good is good enough to pass?--and whether students should be testing at the beginning of the school year (current practice) or at the end. The union is pushing to keep testing in the autumn.

California took three years to back up its standards with a standards-linked test and even longer to complete the transition to a standards-based accountability system.

Bilingual teachers and their political allies have recently fought to exempt English language learners from testing and to create a simplified, standards-lite K-8 curriculum for students from non-English-speaking families. As of August 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, an immigrant who learned English through immersion, was backing the state board of education's insistence that all students be taught to the same standards. Two former governors--Pete Wilson and Gray Davis--joined hands across party lines to back those standards.

Creating standards is only a first step on the long road to reform--but it's also a critical step, one that can take years to achieve. Visionary leaders who can adroitly mix conviction with conversion, friendship and politics, are critical to making high-quality standards a reality.

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