Worries of a Standards 'Backlash' Grow  

                   By Lynn Olson 

                   It sounded fine in theory: Set high standards for what students should know 
                   and be able to do. Give teachers and students the resources and help they 
                   need to reach the standards. Use tests to measure whether the goals are 
                   being met, and encourage results by rewarding success and penalizing 
                   failure. 

                   But as "standards-based reform" plays 
                   out around the country, its uneven and 
                   sometimes careless implementation has 
                   led even some of its main proponents to 
                   worry about the gap between theory 
                   and practice. 

                   "At this point, it would be hard to say I 
                   can identify a place that's got it right, 
                   because there are so many ways to do 
                   it wrong," said Diane Ravitch, a senior 
                   research scholar at New York 
                   University and a former assistant U.S. 
                   secretary of education. 

                   She and other education leaders worry 
                   that the widely publicized missteps in 
                   state after state give critics of the 
                   decade-long standards push plenty of 
                   ammunition. 

                   "We have to make sure that the implementation activities of the standards 
                   movement don't kill the movement," said Bob Chase, the president of the 
                   National Education Association, who emphasized that he remains a 
                   supporter of setting higher expectations for students and schools. 

                   Such concerns echo those of U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. 
                   Riley, who earlier this year called for a "midcourse review" of where 
                   standards-based school improvement is headed. ("Riley Urges 'Review' of 
                   Standards," March 1, 2000.) 

                    Every state but Iowa has adopted standards in at least some academic 
                   subjects. 

                    Forty-eight states have testing programs designed, in part, to measure 
                   how well students perform on those standards. 

                    Twenty-one states plan to issue overall ratings of their schools based 
                   largely on their students' performance. 

                    At least 18 states have the authority to close, take over, or overhaul 
                   schools that are identified as failing. 

                   But as states move from paper to practice, some have raised the ire of 
                   parents, educators, and students, who either disagree with the premise 
                   behind standards-based reform or have found plenty to protest in its 
                   implementation. In states such as California, Massachusetts, Michigan, and 
                   Ohio, grassroots campaigns are encouraging parents to keep their children 
                   home on test days. 

                   Legal challenges against state testing programs are pending in Arizona and 
                   Louisiana. And in such states as Colorado, Minnesota, and Virginia, 
                   citizens are putting pressure on legislators to rethink state accountability 
                   systems. ("Testing Foes Hope To Stoke Middle-Class Ire," March 22, 
                   2000.) 

                   While there are at least a dozen such hot spots around the country, states 
                   that have moved forward more carefully over the years appear to be 
                   weathering the storm. Nationally, public support for standards-based 
                   reform remains high, with states such as Texas and North Carolina 
                   beginning to show gains in student achievement. 

                   Ms. Ravitch, who was a leading proponent of high academic standards 
                   during her tenure in the Bush administration and has remained a strong 
                   advocate since then, compared the dissenters to "crickets in the 
                   field"—relatively few in number but making a lot of noise. 

                   High-Stakes Backlash 

                   But others warn that policymakers should pay heed to the complaints or 
                   court potential disaster. "We're now at the stage where the initial design of 
                   a lot of these policies is coming under heavy scrutiny for good reason," said 
                   Richard F. Elmore, a professor at Harvard University's graduate school of 
                   education. "The redesign part of this is going to be terribly important to the 
                   longer-term political credibility." 

                   Not surprisingly, the backlash has been strongest in states that plan to tie 
                   decisions on student promotion or graduation to scores on state tests. 

                   "It seems like all we do is test," said Elise, an English teacher at a middle 
                   school in East Harlem in New York City, where student promotions, school 
                   rankings, and principal appraisals are all tied to test results. 

                   The 29-year-old teacher, who asked that her last name not be used 
                   because she did not want to hinder her school's mission, said the pressures 
                   have grown so great that, earlier this year, she considered leaving the 
                   profession. "There's so much pressure on the scores, with the tests coming 
                   in April," she said, "that my creative juices have been stifled." 

                   Around the country, many other educators share her feelings. "I'm hearing 
                   from my members that they're concerned, they're anxious," said Gerald N. 
                   Tirozzi, the executive director of the National Association of Secondary 
                   School Principals and a former assistant education secretary under 
                   President Clinton. 

                   Mr. Chase of the NEA agreed. "School employees feel absolutely 
                   overwhelmed by the pressures to succeed on these assessments," he said. 
                   "It's turning lots of people away from a movement that has a lot of 
                   promise." 

                   Twenty states, including New York, now require students to pass a test to 
                   earn a diploma; that number will increase to 28 within the next three years. 
                   At least half a dozen states plan to tie student promotion to test results. 
                   Such states have embraced what are known as "high stakes" tests despite 
                   virtually unanimous agreement among experts that no single measure 
                   should decide a student's academic fate. 

                   U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., plans to introduce legislation this week 
                   that would require states and districts to use multiple measures of 
                   performance if they are going to use standardized tests to make 
                   high-stakes decisions about students, such as graduation or promotion. 

                   In Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and elsewhere, parents 
                   and educators also have complained that tests are taking too much time 
                   and are limiting, rather than enriching, the curriculum. 

                   "If they judged all adults by these things, by these standards, I think adults 
                   would be outraged," said Mary O'Brien, the mother of five school-age sons 
                   in the Upper Arlington school district near Columbus, Ohio. "We used to 
                   have this incredibly rich program," she said. But now, she added, schools 
                   have "completely imposed the notion that testing will be taught to. It's 
                   absolutely ridiculous." 

                   Ms. O'Brien is helping organize a ballot initiative that would eliminate 
                   Ohio's testing system. 

                   "What has happened is that standardized tests have been elevated to 
                   where they are the curriculum," said Ann Lieberman, a senior scholar at 
                   the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, an education 
                   think tank based in Palo Alto, Calif. "What we are doing is narrowing the 
                   kinds of activities and learning opportunities for students rather than 
                   broadening and deepening them." 

                   'A Club for Compliance'  

                                               One major problem, according to 
                                               many observers, is that the 
                                               accountability aspects of the 
                                               standards movement have outpaced 
                                               efforts to provide schools, teachers, 
                                               and students with the capacity to 
                                               reach the standards. 

                                               "To date, it appears that 
                                               policymakers and politicians are more 
                                               interested in using standards as a 
                                               club for compliance than as a light 
                                               toward better teaching and learning," 
                                               said Hayes Mizell, the director of the 
                                               program for student achievement at 
                                               the Edna McConnell Clark 
                                               Foundation, a New York City-based 
                                               philanthropy that is active in 
                                               education. 

                                               On the positive side, he and others 
                   point out, standards-based reform has brought the needs of low-performing 
                   students and schools out of the shadows. 

                   "I think one of the huge successes is what it has done to focus 
                   governmental and public attention on the needs of low-performing schools 
                   and students," said Marc S. Tucker, the president of the National Center 
                   on Education and the Economy, a Washington-based nonprofit that helps 
                   design standards-based education and training systems. 

                   "Kids all over the country, in states that have been developing 
                   standards-based systems, are getting resources for after-school, Saturday, 
                   and summer school programs they have never gotten before on an 
                   enormous scale," he said. "And this has happened, I think, entirely because 
                   of the standards movement." 

                   In states such as Texas, where the accountability efforts linked to 
                   standards spell out goals not just for a school's overall student population, 
                   but also for specific minority groups, African-American and Hispanic 
                   students have made strong gains. "We can't turn back from 
                   standards-based reform," said Raul Gonzalez, an education policy analyst 
                   at the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group based in 
                   Washington. "That's the only way we think that our kids will be able to 
                   become educated and be able to compete in a postsecondary education 
                   world." 

                   But the movement veered off course, he argues, when proponents of 
                   academic standards dropped their commitment to standards for schools, 
                   known as "opportunity to learn" standards, that would have sought to 
                   ensure that youngsters had access to high-quality instruction. 

                   'Turning Realistic'  

                   "I think, unfortunately, what we have in too many districts and states is 
                   test-driven reform masquerading as standards-based reform," said Warren 
                   Simmons, the executive director of the Providence, R.I.-based Annenberg 
                   Institute for School Reform. 

                   "In the absence of serious attention and progress in the areas of 
                   capacity-building and resource allocation," he added, "what you're left with 
                   is lots of information about school failure, with people feeling a lack of 
                   support and information about how to address the gaps that are emerging." 

                   Many wonder how long politicians can sustain a large gap between the 
                   high expectations they've set for students and the percentage of students 
                   meeting those goals. 

                   Hugh B. Price, the president of the National Urban League, warns that in 
                   the absence of a credible plan for helping students achieve high standards, 
                   the public's patience is wearing thin. He also cautions states against setting 
                   standards so high that conscientious non-college-bound youngsters cannot 
                   reach them. 

                   'Still a Lot of Support'  

                   Like many other national leaders interviewed in recent weeks, Mr. Price 
                   does not believe the movement has failed or should be thrown out, but 
                   argues that changes need to be made, and made quickly. 

                   "I think the conversation is turning realistic about standards very slowly," 
                   he said. "The other thing we're seeing is the beginning of forward motion 
                   on some key issues," such as the need to improve teacher quality and 
                   professional development. 

                   "The regret, of course, is that we're not on a war footing in this," Mr. Price 
                   added. 

                   The lack of standards-related professional development for teachers and of 
                   curriculum and instructional materials aligned with the standards is often 
                   cited as a critical problem for teachers trying to work with the new 
                   standards and tests. 

                   "We still have a lot of places where we don't have the kind of curriculum 
                   frameworks that students and teachers need to go with the standards," said 
                   Sandra Feldman, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, 
                   which has been a strong proponent of high academic standards. "And we 
                   still don't have, in most places, meaningful professional development to 
                   enable teachers to teach to the new standards. So there's still a lot of work 
                   to do, but there's also, I think, still a lot of support for this direction." 

                   A national survey of AFT members conducted for the union last summer 
                   found that teachers favored a standards-based approach by a ratio of 
                   about 4-to-1. A similar survey done at the same time of principals in four 
                   states found their support for standards nearly universal. 

                   Moreover, teachers in low-income and low-performing schools were 
                   nearly as supportive of standards as those in other schools, while black and 
                   Hispanic teachers were particularly likely to report that standards had had 
                   a positive impact on their schools. 

                   The survey also found that the longer a school had been pursuing 
                   standards-based improvement, the higher the level of teacher satisfaction. 
                   That suggests, in part, that states can overcome initial backlash if they 
                   persevere and make adjustments as needed. 

                   Many proponents of the standards movement point to Texas as the model 
                   of a state that began with relatively low, but realistic, standards and then 
                   ratcheted them up as schools developed greater capacity to meet them. 

                   "I think that in places where this has been in place a long time, and it has 
                   been implemented in a fairly slow but steady fashion—Texas, Kentucky, 
                   Maryland—there have been adjustments, but not the kind of major 
                   backlash that we're seeing in states like Massachusetts," said Margaret E. 
                   Goertz, the co-director of the Consortium for Policy Research in 
                   Education, a national research organization based at the University of 
                   Pennsylvania. 

                   In contrast, states such as Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia "did it 
                   all at once," she said. "They've put in very high standards and are moving 
                   to hold people accountable for those standards very quickly." 

                   'A Horrible Idea'  

                   Some opponents of standards-based reform are hoping to use the current 
                   anxiety about high-stakes testing to derail what they view as a 
                   wrong-headed effort. 

                   "It was a horrible idea to begin with," said Alfie Kohn, an education author 
                   who is a prominent critic of the standards movement. In particular, he 
                   asserts that the emphasis on standards encourages a narrow,  
                   back-to-basics curriculum and substitutes a focus on  results for a deeper 
                   engagement in learning. 

                   He is hoping that, eventually, teachers' frustration and dismay about 
                   standards will lead to a grassroots revolt similar to what occurred in 
                   Britain, where teachers boycotted the use of new national exams. 

                   Other critics concede that it's unrealistic to believe that the current push 
                   for standards and accountability will abate any time soon. But they are 
                   hoping that, in the current environment, they can make the case for a more 
                   decentralized accountability system: one that would give schools and 
                   communities more flexibility and that would reduce the importance of a 
                   single state test. 

                   "I think we're now more or less at the high-water mark" when it comes to 
                   testing, said Monty Neill, the executive director of  FairTest, a Cambridge, 
                   Mass., watchdog group that strongly opposes most standardized testing. 

                   Despite such concerns, virtually all of the movement's proponents say they 
                   remain supportive of the concept and believe that there is no turning back. 

                   "What we're trying to do is difficult and takes time," said Ms. Ravitch, 
                   echoing the sentiments of many other experts. "It's too soon to say we 
                   tried it, and it failed." 

                   "This is just part of the agony of change," she added. "I continue to think, 
                   ultimately, it's going to yield better results than going backwards." 
 

                   Read "Rethinking Accountability," from the Annenberg Institute for School 
                   Reform. 

                   From the Heritage Foundation's Issues 2000 briefing book: "Education: 
                   Achieving Results Through Real Accountability," by Nina Shokraii Rees, sets 
                   out a formula for real school reform. 

                   Read "Assessments and Accountability," about the use of tests and 
                   assessments in five waves of educational reform during the past 50 years, 
                   from the March 2000 issue of the Educational Researcher.