Standardization: how to weather the coming storm.

• Author: Braswell, David L.
• Position: Education

THE K-12 educational forecast over the next few years is anything but bright and sunny. Indeed, a storm is brewing. Pres. Bush's powerful "No Child Left Behind" legislation adds teeth to state-mandated performance standards and high-stakes tests across the nation. One by one, states are implementing standards of their own throughout public school systems. The President's comprehensive plan for classroom reform carves out time lines on a path toward achieving lasting improvements in education while attempting to benefit all children. In this new environment, students must demonstrate mastery of dozens of required skills or risk not receiving a diploma.

How schools implement standards legislation is paramount to the success of America's children. Yet, tacking state and Federal mandates onto our severely dysfunctional education system is like barricading open windows by using tape and tissue paper. Without immediate and appropriate action, we will fail our kids.

As an elected school board member of one of the largest elementary school districts in Arizona, I am weary of listening to all the things that educators are supposedly doing right, yet seeing results that prove otherwise. A recent U.S. Department of Education report reveals that most high school seniors have a poor grasp of the nation's history, and that knowledge has not improved in seven years. On the 2001 U.S. History Report Card, the results are alarming: 57% of seniors could not perform at the basic level; 32% did; and 11% managed grade-level work--a mere one percent was advanced or superior. Fourth- and eighth-grade students tended to do better than seniors, but not by much: 18% of fourth-graders performed at grade level or above, while 49% did so at basic. In 1994, 17% were at grade level or above and 47% at basic.

A majority of state-mandated high-stakes tests will officially begin to "count" in the next five years. Under our current education system, millions of students will be unable to meet these standards and, instead of receiving a diploma, will get a certificate of attendance. Who will know what these students passed or failed? For the devastated students holding attendance certificates, it will be too late.

We do want every child to succeed. In fact, No Child Left Behind allocates more than $26,500,000,000 over the next several years to see that it happens. Will we spend this money to support existing conditions in our schools further? I certainly hope not.

Just a decade ago, standards were recognized as necessary to improve education in America. So, one by one, state legislatures determined that their departments of education would adopt or develop their own standards and set up schedules for gradual implementation. Currently, 49 states have some policy that recommends or requires districts to teach specific standards. Increasingly, states are requiring high school students to pass stringent exit exams to demonstrate mastery of every standard in order to receive their diplomas. The systems take effect gradually, with tests in fourth, eighth, and 12th grades to check student progress.

We already are failing our students miserably. For example, a parent of a ninth-grader in my school district...