Study Says U.S. Should Replace States' High School Standards

A patchwork of state standards is failing to produce high school graduates who are prepared either for college or for work, three education policy organizations say in a new report. The solution, they say, is to adopt rigorous national standards that will turn the high school diploma into a "common national currency."

"For too many graduates, the American high school diploma signifies only a broken promise," the groups, which favor standardized testing to improve education, say.

Working through what they call the American Diploma Project, the organizations — Achieve Inc., the Education Trust and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation — consulted with higher education officials and business executives in five states to develop standards they say will ensure that high school graduates are equipped to move into either college-level work or a decent-paying job.

"For many kids, the diploma is a ticket to nowhere," Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, said. "In this era, where some postsecondary education is essential, that's no good."

Ms. Haycock said half the students who went on to four-year colleges ended up taking some remedial course work because their preparation was inadequate.

The report charges that employers and postsecondary institutions "all but ignore the diploma, knowing that it often serves as little more than a certificate of attendance," because "what it takes to earn one is disconnected from what it takes for graduates to compete successfully beyond high school."

The diploma project comes as others are looking for ways to improve high schools. A commission appointed by the National Assessment Governing Board is studying whether national 12th grade tests should try to measure high school seniors' readiness for work and college. The board sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or N.A.E.P., the nationwide examinations given in 4th, 8th and 12th grades and referred to as the "the nation's report card."

"We are considering looking beyond high school to be more predictive about how they would do in the workplace and in college," Charles E. Smith, executive director of the governing board, said.

The diploma project recommends that the N.A.E.P. tests be realigned based on standards in the report.

Some critics of high-stakes testing say the challenge is not determining what students ought to know, but in teaching them.

"They're saying that if we have one set of standards, students will meet them," said Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing in Cambridge, Mass. "But if you are not going to provide the resources to help students meet the standards, they're not going to meet them, whatever the standards are."

Mr. Neill said many states already had standards that were far beyond what their students were achieving. If some states have standards that are too low, he added, they should re-examine them, rather than impose a common national standard.

In English, the diploma project calls for mastery of spelling and grammar, communication skills, writing, research and logic, as well as the ability to read and interpret technical material, to view media critically and to understand and analyze literature. In math, it calls for mastery of numerical operations, algebra, geometry and data interpretation, statistics and probability, and provides sample problems.

I don't really dispute the point you are making, which I believe is primarily that if the states are messing something up, especially something important, then we can fix it in one stroke by assigning that fix to a central authority, such as the federal government. A lot easier than trying laboriously to go from state to state.

And there's no denying that a fix is badly needed.

I just hate to see the feds assuming more and more power, and our Constitution subverted any further than it is. Although I agree that those things are warped already out of all recognition.

Also, I think that minimum government standards tend to be just that, *minimum* standards.

Yeah, homeschooling is great for parents with the ability to do it, and private or church schools need no standards imposed, as a rule. I believe Milton Friedman has done some work on the voucher issue, but am not too familiar with it.

What exactly is it that "conservatives" don't like about this proposal?

Hmmmmm, let's see. Well we have the Tenth Amendment to contend with, but that's a nevermind since politicians don't bother the Constitution anymore. There was another reason somewhere, oh yes, perhaps because it's not under the power of the national government? A conservative President once called for elimination of the Dept of Education and now we have a 'conservative' President not only wanting to expand it but to centralize education even more. That's 'incrementalism' that is. Progress in the wrong direction

Why not encourage all parents to homeschool?

That's what I'd like, but most of them aren't going to do it.

Whether you like it or not, you depend a lot on your fellow citizens, and having a society full of illiterates is to nobody's advantage.

We have created a media driven culture that has made everyone totally irresponsible, but if you seriously think that not providing money for education is going to make individuals accept the responsibility, you can forget about it.

Demand standards - and vouchers.

You can see much more forceful action in, for instance, the Colorado legislature's efforts.

A lot of this change must be local, by its very nature.

One of the problems is that we (conservatives) rail at the federal government for its top-down management style while at the same time depending on it to do things at the state level. I read an article elsewhere today, for example, about how much federal money that had been apportioned to bring about these changes was turned back by the states because they actually couldn't (or didn't want to) figure out how to change their system to use it.

I think if we want a serious change in this country, we have to elect conservative governors and legislators, both at the federal and STATE levels.

I live in Florida, and Gov. Bush has done some really good things here (you know they're good if the teachers' union hates them). But it's rough, because we have huge Dem areas here that don't want any change at all to a completely failed system, and they try to block him at every turn.

One of the areas where conservatives are very, very weak is, oddly enough, the local and state level. I think we've got to change this.

"Does this better explain the problem conservatives have with this kind of plan?"

Your points are excellent, IMO.

Not to even mention the fact that any standards the government comes up with are likely to be horrifying.

In fact the Clinton administration did move in this direction, with actual recommendations for national education standards. Some of the recommendations were as awful as you'd think, and included such things as de-emphasizing teaching about the founding fathers in favor of more politicaly correct persons.

It's hard to be a "conservative" and support central planning is kind of the bottom line here.

I agree with you about the weird standards - I don't think everybody has to want to be an accountant or an attorney, either, and I don't know why voc ed has been totally despised for the last 30 years.

Who has a better life - a well-employed plumber, or a stressed-out miserable lawyer who hates his job because he really wanted to be a plumber (I worked with one of these once, btw).

I don't think it's a matter of defining success. I think you need certain minimum skills to do anything, and the problem is that our public schools, for which your tax dollars and mine pay big bucks, are not teaching the minimum skills necessary to get across the street with the light.

I think parents should be teaching this, and I think all real learning begins at home.

But I think a lot of parents (regardless of income level - the soccer moms are no better than the crack mothers in this respect) don't want to believe or do this, so the task falls to the schools.

All I am saying is that if we are going to be paying out this money, at least we should have kids coming out of these places who can do basic math and reading.

When Florida put its standards system into place, I heard hours of teachers howling on call-in shows that there was no way the kids could do this, blah, blah, blah.

A couple of years later, most of the kids have learned to do it - or their principals and teachers have had to explain why not. (Believe me, they're not expecting a whole heck of a lot - I don't know how old you are, but I suspect that you and I would have done all of this stuff by 8th grade, max.)

Whether you like it or not, you depend a lot on your fellow citizens, and having a society full of illiterates is to nobody's advantage.
You're a product of the public school system, aren't ya.

We have created a media driven culture that has made everyone totally irresponsible, but if you seriously think that not providing money for education is going to make individuals accept the responsibility, you can forget about it.
Oh wait, you're not just a former student, but probably currently a TEACHER. Yes, more money ALWAYS = better education. Won't anyone think of the CHILDREN? And who better to run this national program, given their current success, and also similiar successes managing social security, medicare, and the war on drugs, than the federal government.

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