Will "Common Tests" Answer the Question: What knowledge is of most worth?

Written by Jack Hassard

On October 21, 2009

There was an article in the recent issue of Education Week entitled Experts to Weigh in on Common Tests.  They will have their chance to speak to U.S. Department of Education in Atlanta, Boston and Denver.

A bit of background.  Forty-eight of the 50 states have agreed to work together to develop “common academic standards”  in math and language arts.  In order to measure these standards, the Department of Education wants to develop a set of “common tests.”

The common academic standards will define what students should be able to master by the end of high school.  According to the Education Week article, grade-by-grade common standards will follow.  So the Department of Education wants to invest $350 million to solicit proposals to work out the details of “common tests.”

A little more background.  Last year the Department of Education received nearly $5 billion dollars from the economic-stimulus package passed by Congress.  Two programs have emerged that will be funded by this money.  The first is Race to the Top Fund, (Appropriation: $4,350,000,000) and the second is money to be used for Investing in Innovation grants (Appropriation: $650,000,000).

Both of these funding programs are designed to lead to “education innovation and reform” in four core areas (follow this link for more information):

  • Adopting internationally-benchmarked standards and assessments
  • Recruiting, developing, retaining, and rewarding effective teachers and principals
  • Building data systems that measure student success and inform teachers and principals how they can improve their practice; and
  • Turning around our lowest-performing schools

Funding in these two areas (Race to Top; and Innovation) will be aimed at these goals:

  • achieving significant improvement in student outcomes, including making substantial gains in student achievement, closing achievement gaps, improving high school graduation rates, and
  • ensuring that students are prepared for success in college and careers.

The article, and the links to the U.S. Department of Education website where The Race to the Top and Innovation Grants are described raise the question of “What knowledge of most worth.”  As soon as the Race to the Top was announced by Secretary Duncan, I was disappointed by the use of such a phrase, but even more so by the details of the goals of these two hugely appropriated programs.  It seems to me that the article that was in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that I referred to in my last post about mathematics education is right on target here as a criticism of the underlying goals of the Race to the Top, but also the effort underway to establish a set of “common standards.”  Given that we are starting in mathematics and language arts, it might be that Ken Sprague’s suggestion that we are simply developing math curriculum for math’s sake, and not taking into account how mathematics knowledge might be presented in a practical way.

For as long as I can remember as an educator, we have been engaged in developing state and national standards that try to answer the question: What knowledge is of most worth?

In an article by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, he points out that our schools are in need of improvement, but he moves us in a different direction when thinking about improving schooling.  He said this:

So our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.  Bottom line: We’re not going back to the good old days without fixing our schools as well as our banks.

Are these new efforts by the 48 states to develop a common set of standards, and the U.S. Department of Education to fund the development of “common tests” leading us in the right direction?  What role will entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity play in the new common standards?  Or will they?  What do you think?

You May Also Like…

A Letter from A Teen Living in 2051 about Education and the Climate Crisis

A Letter from A Teen Living in 2051 about Education and the Climate Crisis

This post focuses on education and climate as seen by a teen living in Atlanta in the year 2051.  I originally published it on April 21,  2012.  Although a work of fiction, it is presented here as a reminder of the consequences of making decisions based on faulty reasoning and ignorance.  I am re-publishing it today ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Glasgow, Scotland

Michelle Rhee’s legacy

Latest Story: Reblogged from Mathbabe Michelle Rhee’s legacy Dr. O’Neil provides important comparisons between the Atlanta cheating scandal and the cheating scandal in Washington, D.C. under Michelle Rhee. The difference was the scandal in D.C. was buried. Originally...

Is the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Smart or Just Dumb?

Is the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Smart or Just Dumb?  That's the question we'll try to address in this blog post. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) released scale scores for math and ELA (English Language Arts) aligned to the...

0 Comments

We would enjoy reading your comments

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Citizen Jack

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading