A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

This is a Working Document
The Seven Priorities of the U.S. Department of Education (July 1997)

Priority Four:
All States and Their Schools Will Have Challenging and Clear Standards of Achievement and Accountability for All Children and Effective Strategies for Reaching Those Standards

Importance of Priority Four

In a recent article, Hugh B. Price, President of the National Urban League, captured the power of high standards when he wrote:

"Setting high standards pulls young people to full membership in the larger society by enabling them to create for themselves the proper aspirations, and to shape and channel those ambitions by working to develop the skills and the self-discipline to achieve them. High standards set by adults ratify what is the natural inclination of children -- to strive to do their best in doing what they think adults want them to do well....[O]ne of the most important lessons of meeting high standards is that it proves it's possible to do."

But currently, for too many children, this country has created a tyranny of low expectations and provided a watered-down curriculum that does not prepare them well for the global society and information age. The lack of challenging standards hits certain groups of children the hardest -- minority children, children living in poverty, and children with limited English proficiency or with disabilities -- exacerbating great disparities in opportunities and achievement between them and their more affluent peers.

For the past four years, the Department of Education's efforts have shared a common direction: supporting challenging state content and performance standards and system-wide reforms to lift the achievement of all students to those standards. Challenging standards are necessary for at least six reasons:

Content standards provide clear guideposts for what children should know and be able to do. Performance standards address "how good is good enough," often by providing examples of student work which demonstrate key levels of quality in relation to a body of content standards.
Standards provide parents with answers to the frequently asked questions, "What should my child know?" and "Is my child learning?" They help parents hold schools accountable for results.
Standards lead students to take more challenging courses, which is a strong predictor of high achievement, and to assume more responsibility for their progress.
Standards serve as a guide to teachers, principles, schools and school districts around which all other aspects of the system --professional development, assessment, curriculum, accountability -- can be aligned.
Standards support higher student achievement, destroying the myth that some groups of children cannot achieve to as high a level as others.
Standards support the efforts of teachers and principals to improve curriculum and instruction based on what children should be learning.

Progress in Raising Standards Across America

In the mid-1980's a number of states initiated education improvement efforts geared towards more challenging standards. In the 1990's, the Department's legislative initiatives, along with groups such as the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Science Foundation, and the Business Round Table, have reinforced those state efforts and stimulated new ones. In fact, a major focus of all of the Department's legislative initiatives during the past four years has been challenging standards for all children. An important purpose of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act is to support the creation of high standards. Communities in all 50 states are now using Goals 2000 resources to improve teaching and learning based on their own high standards in core academic subjects. Our approach to school-to-work links vocational training in the workplace to rigorous academic learning in the classroom. In addition, we have been working to eliminate the less-challenging instruction and dual curriculum that often plague Title I and other ESEA programs and insisting on high standards for all students. The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in 1994, for example, revamped the Title I program to focus on rigorous standards, professional development and schoolwide reforms. The recently passed Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is designed to better enable students with disabilities to participate in the same curriculum and achieve to the high standards expected of all students.

Because of these and other efforts, the nation has made important progress in raising standards since the 1989 Education Summit in Charlottesville. Forty-eight of the fifty states have content standards of some kind. And the importance of raising expectations for all children is widely accepted. Yet much work needs to be done to get higher standards into schools and classrooms.

The Challenges Ahead

The success of getting rigorous standards into all schools is still not a foregone conclusion and will depend on how well schools, communities and states address the following emerging challenges:

Ensuring standards are challenging. The standards many states are setting are below the national consensus on "what is good enough." A study done by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) compared the percentage of students on a nationwide basis who reached the proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test to the percentage who reached the proficient level on the assessments given by various states who make up the SREB. Many states reported that while 70 percent of their students scored at the "proficient" level on their own assessments, only 30 percent (or even fewer) of their students are actually proficient in these subjects, as measured by the NAEP. This suggests that the states' performance standards are less challenging than nationally-set standards.
Building public understanding for challenging standards and aligned tests. One of the biggest barriers to raising standards is public reaction (i.e., of legislators, parents) when students who get As or Bs in school receive low test scores. It will be important to reach out to the public on these issues through publications, Public Service Announcements, and forums and disseminate examples of student work that reflect the more challenging level of performance expected of all children. As part of this effort, the Department is planning to work with the Educational Excellence Partnership to launch an ad campaign with a handbook for parents on how to help raise standards.
Aligning assessment and professional development to challenging standards. Many states still need to develop assessments aligned with their standards that can measure the success of students in meeting the standards. To improve teaching and learning, they must align their pre-service training for future teachers, professional development for existing staff, and curriculum for all students with the standards. Many states and communities will need support in ensuring that all aspects of their education system are effective in helping all children achieve to challenging standards.
Getting rigorous standards into the classroom. Once a state has developed standards, it must determine how to implement them so that they affect classroom practice and what and how teachers teach every day. Right now, this is not happening enough. For example, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) found at the eighth grade that American teachers know about the more rigorous math standards but are not given the time, training or support to learn to teach to them. Only when standards are made real for parents, teachers and students will they influence teaching and learning.
Promoting stronger school accountability for high student performance. Stronger school accountability depends on the existence of clear and challenging standards that are understood by all members of a school system. But higher standards will not ensure stronger accountability unless parents, teachers, and school districts are willing to take steps to deal with ongoing low performance of schools or teachers.

Strategy For Supporting Priority Four

The Department will continue supporting states', districts' and schools' efforts to address these challenges and strengthen their reforms geared to challenging standards. Its activities will include:

Promoting concrete national standards of excellence in 4th grade reading and 8th grade math. These standards are reading at the basic level on the National Assessment of Education Progress by the end of third grade or by the fourth grade and mastery of challenging mathematics, including the foundations of algebra and geometry, by the end of eighth grade. Under legislation, the bipartisan National Assessment Governing Board will oversee and the Department will fund the development of a rigorous voluntary national test of fourth grade reading and eighth grade math that will demonstrate the extent of student progress in reaching these standards.
Helping states meet Title I's requirement that they have challenging content and performance standards in at least math and English/language arts by the fall of 1997 and high-quality aligned assessments by 2000-2001. Title I requires that these standards and assessments be the same as those the state uses for all other children. The Department will encourage nonfederal agencies and organizations to review state standards to determine their rigor.
Promoting its pending reauthorization proposals for Voc-ed, Adult-ed, and Voc-rehab. Each of these proposals is designed to promote challenging standards and lifelong learning.
Proposing funding increases in FY98 for Department programs supporting challenging standards. The President is asking Congress for a $129 million increase in Goals 2000 to enable an estimated 16,000 schools to participate. His FY98 budget also proposes increases for a number of other programs including the Title I program, Eisenhower Professional Development and the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Programs.
Emphasizing to the public the importance of fixing failing schools. In his 1997 State of Education speech, Secretary Riley emphasized the need for society to stop "tolerat[ing] failing schools" and "fall[ing] in the trap of thinking that children who are stuck in failing schools are the problem." Riley called on the public to fix failing schools by reconstituting them or closing them down, finding new leaders, removing incompetent teachers if repeated efforts to improve them do not work or starting charter schools. By developing a comprehensive research strategy on failing schools, the Department can advance this goal.

Your comments on this document are invited, please send them to 7priorities@ed.gov.

-###-

[ Priority Three: Prepared for and Able to Afford College... ] [ Priority Five: Talented, Dedicated, Well-Prepared Teacher... ]