Frequently Asked Questions
About Academic Standards
What are Academic Standards and how do they relate to NCLB?
Why do we need Standards in schools? Don’t we have Standards already?
Who sets Academic Standards?
What’s going to keep the students who are behind now from falling farther behind?
Won’t Standards force all students into the same mold?
A. No Child Left Behind continues the policy that students in high poverty schools are held to the same high standards as all other students. Academic Standards are open and public statements regarding what all students should know and be able to do in academic subjects including: mathematics, science, English, history, geography, arts and second languages.
Academic Standards are high and rigorous in order to adequately prepare students for productive work and lifelong learning.
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Q. Why do we need Standards in schools? Don’t we have Standards already?
A. We need Standards for excellence and for fairness. For too many poor and minority students, schooling has been like trying to bowl with a curtain in front of the pins. No one told them what they should be aiming to hit. Standards can tear the curtain away and make the goals clear to everyone.
We haven’t had fair, open, and public statements about what all students should know and be able to do -- until now. We have had implicit Standards, a kind of unspoken understanding about what some, but not all students should know and be able to do. Implicit Standards have meant different expectations for different students, and even these implicit Standards are not high enough in today’s demanding world.
Q. Who sets academic Standards?
A. Everybody with a stake in children’s education should be involved: teachers, parents, students, and representatives from community organizations and the business community. Also, working experts in the subject fields such as mathematicians, scientists, journalists, etc should be involved as well.
The national Standards that we now have as models were developed by professional organizations that assembled scholars, teachers, and business/community members to reach a collective agreement about what all students need to know in specific areas of study. States and school districts use the national Standards as a starting point to decide what is important for their students. For example, the regions and cultures emphasized in history Standards will probably vary somewhat from state to state.
Q. What’s going to keep the students who are behind now from falling farther behind?
A. It is important to make clear that the adoption of Standards is a reform strategy that will affect all parts of the system, from the classroom to the boardroom.
High academic Standards alone can’t do the job. You have to change other things in the school system at the same time. You have to make sure that teachers have the knowledge, skill, and materials they need to teach all of their students to high levels. You have to reward schools where the lowest achieving students make progress as well as those with the highest achieving students. You have to provide help for schools that aren’t working, and intervene with substantial consequences if they don’t improve. Many students will need special support to reach the Standards, but they can and must reach them.
Q. Won’t Standards force all students into the same mold?
A. No, quite the opposite. If you know where you want to go (that’s what Standards are—the academic destination), you can get there by many different routes. There is information in all academic subjects that all students must learn, but teachers can teach it and students can learn it in many different ways. Standards free up the creativity in teachers and in students. For example, teachers might create lessons from a variety of sources, including textbooks, interviews, public documents, and academic journals. But all students must learn to read well. All must learn algebra. All must learn to apply the scientific method. No exceptions. No excuses.
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