Will Standards Save Public Education?
“Even in the hands of sincere allies of children, equity, and public education, the current push for far greater standardization than we’ve ever previously attempted is fundamentally misguided.” Deborah Meier in this essay states her case for shifting control of public education to a local focus. She argues that shifting the authority to outside authorities undermines the teaching of the ideals of the democratic system such as – “responsibility for one’s own ideas, tolerance for the ideas of others, and a capacity to negotiate differences.”
The standards movement was fueled in 1983 by the publication of A Nation at Risk. This scathing report attacked teachers, social promotion, and academic permissiveness. Meier agrees with critics that the data that backs the claims of school decline are weak and notes the United States’ rank as second or third in the world in elementary school literacy. She would instead point to another crisis – a crisis in human relationships. She maintains that “ the closer our youth come to adulthood the less they belong to communities that include responsible adults, and the more stuck they are in peer-only subcultures.” The massive size of some schools, standardization, and the move away from local communities; have contributed to the alienation of our youth.
Response essays from four leaders in school reform including Theodore Sizer, Abigail Thernstrom, Gary B. Nash, Linda Nathan, Richard Murname, Bob Chase, and William Ayres refute Meier’s case. Murname says he does “ . . . not mean to imply that all is well with standards-based reform efforts.” Rather his conclusion is that the inequality in American education has been the legacy of local control." He feels that standards are critical to reducing these educational inequalities. William Ayres makes the case that, "high academic standards are essential to good schools…and a watered-down curriculum, vague or meaningless goals, expectations of failure--these are a few of the ingredients of academic ruin."
This collection of lively essays on the subject of Standards provide a well-balanced look at this complicated subject that is ever in the forefront of education today.