Standards vs. reality, cont’d.
Had I read the actual Fordham report I mentioned yesterday, I
would have seen, and highlighted for you, this passage in the
foreword, by Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli:
Yet
everyone also knows that standards often end up like wallpaper.
They sit there on a state website, available for download, but
mostly they’re ignored. Educators instead obsess about what’s on
the high-stakes test—and how much students actually have to know
in order to pass—which becomes the real standard. After making
the most superficial ad- justments, textbook publishers assert
that their wares are “aligned” with the standards. Ed schools
simply ignore them.
So it’s no great surprise that serious analysts, recently including the Brookings Institution’s Russ Whitehurst, have found no link between the quality of state standards and actual student performance.3 That’s because standards seldom get real traction on the ground. Adopting good standards is like having a goal for your cholesterol; it doesn’t mean you will actually eat a healthy diet. Or like purchasing a treadmill; owning that machine only makes a difference if you tie on your sneakers and run.
But when great standards are combined with smart implementation, policy makers can move mountains.