Don't Lower California's Standards

October 4, 2007 by dave

This San Francisco Chronicle story kind of scares me. It shares the results of a Fordham Institute study which found that California, South Carolina and Massachusetts have the toughest standards tests among the 50 states. With the move in other states to reduce the definition of proficiency in order to meet No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements, I can easily see California doing the same. One of the few good things to come out of Sacramento in recent years has been our world class standards and the state's consistency in maintaining them. I fear more stories like this one could encourage efforts to lower our standards in order to give the illusion that students are improving.

While our standards are high, I don't believe they are not unreasonably so. There is evidence to support this position. For example:

• The bulk of California High School graduates attending the California State University (which are supposed to be the top third of graduates) as freshman require remediation before they're ready for college level work. These are students who have passed the California High School Exit Exam, which is also based on our standards for 8th/9th grade.
• As the article points out, California's students are generally improving on the California Standards Test (CST) but not showing the same progress on the National Assessment of Educational Process (NAEP). If California's test is so difficult, why aren't we seeing more progress on the NAEP?
• There are schools across the state who are getting high percentages of students to proficiency (above 80%), including ethnic minority and/or low-income students. Since these schools are able to get nearly all their students to proficiency, they're proving that all students can reach these standards with the right kind of classroom instruction and academic support.

The article goes on to describe the recommendation in the report that national standards be created, along with an assessment of those standards so that individual states can no longer lower their standards in order to artificially inflate proficiency rates. Unfortunately, that's going to be a difficult sell. NCLB opponents want to diminish the act's influence on state standards. I'd love to see an effort among the states to settle on common standards rather than have national standards forced on them by NCLB. I just don't see that happening. Until it does, states are going to continue to game the system to their benefit and the detriment of their students.

Fortunately, this is one area where California has held strong. I sincerely hope our education leaders continue to do so. We have much work to do in our state. We need to build on these world class standards and reform the rest of our system of public education to match.

Permalink