Part II: Section 6: Getting the standards, curriculum, and assessments right (pp 82 - 87)

Summary:

Again, part II looks backwards from an imagined future, hence the use of past tense. This section deals with the refinement of our standards and assessment systems to improve their relevance, coherence, depth, and alignment.

1. In the past, curriculum and standards in the US were the incoherent outcomes of committees and the political wrangling between interest groups in education. The tests used to measure learning were too frequently machine-graded, multiple choice exams that did not produce "examples of clear thinking, good analysis, fine writing, or skillful problem-solving."
2. Using the example of other countries, the US moved forward with the use of multiple, third-party "examination board," private organizations that are authorized by the state to provide assessment services, such as the College Board, which provides AP exams. Each state would sanction multiple boards with equivalencies.
3. Curriculum and standards were developed on the basis of "empirical research and rigorous analysis of data" about what is worth knowing in the 21st century workplace.
4. Employers insisted upon less specific training and more transferrable, core knowledge and powerful schemas upon which workers could build new knowledge quickly. Students would "learn how to learn" in school.
   
5. Standards around leadership skills and multicultural competance became important to school curriculum.
   
6. NCLB legislation was reformed to allow less leeway for states to manipulate the standards.
7. High school exit requirements were to be set by the Board Examinations approved by the states.
8. Federal incentives were created to promote the use of PISA exams in states, to allow for international comparisons of performance.
9. Congress was persuaded to fund research into improved assessment systems that would better capture students "creative and innovative capacity and their reasoning ability as well as their mastery of fact and procedure."

Clarifying Questions:

1. Will the creation of "Board Examinations"eliminate the interest-group-dominated educational bureaucracy that currently administers state standards and exit examinations? Who will pursuade these powers to relent?
2. Why is it implied that teachers can have no part in the creation of coherent standards? What is wrong with a localized, pluralistic approach to assessment?
3. How much diversity will exist (or be allowed by states) in the assessment types offered by private Board Certification groups? How will the costs of these be born, and will the 'elite' assessments, such as the IB, remain within reach of low income students?

Probing Questions:

1. What does an assessment look like that actually measures the creativity the report claims to be the goal of 21st century education? (Performance-based assessment?)
2. How does one actually teach the core conceptual frameworks for lifelong learning?
   
3. How can foundational, essential curriculum also be relevant and authentic?
4. What counts as empirical evidence of instructional effectiveness?

Connections:

1. For many years, the Coalition of Essential Schools has taken the position that national and state curriculum standards and assessments are overwrought with subject matter and too often shallow and incoherent in their approach. Schools in their network seek to build "essential skills and habits" and focus the school around development of enduring skills of literacy and critical thinking. The curricular approach "for the 21st century" described in this report seems to be a triump of CES's line of thinking. Am I being too optimistic?
2. One major concern I have about this section is the implication that the role of teachers in the design of assessment should be minimized because it is the cause of incoherence and inconsistency. I have heard this especially from the world of educational policy and research, professors and PhD students who find that the classroom practitioners can't and don't really think or talk about instruction with much clarity or objectivity.  This part of the report seems to be lacking much grasp of the fact that, if not for the feedback of classroom practice, NO working curriculum could evolve. Even the Advanced Placement exam is graded by practicing teachers, with ample room for feedback. This artifact of the distrust of classroom educators is a residue of two problems: systemic information failures that prevent meaningful feedback between the world of educational practice back into the world of theory/research, and the democratic control of education, which creates a whole class of professionals outside the classroom whose job it is to sell new solutions to different parts of the public. This report is pitched to the business world and Joe private-sector, to whom teachers are often understood as low-level bureacrats rather than professionals. While it is true that most teaching professionals do not have the time or interest to sponsor much serious inquiry around pedagogy, there are numerous promising examples to the contrary, and I do not view this problem as inevitable.  Imagine trying to advance the standards of medical practice without the expertise of doctors...