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I had occasion to ponder some social studies standards the other week and had three observations about the pitfalls of trying to write standards: (1.) Randomness. Looking at Pennsylvania’s standards for history, standard 8.3.12 (8.3 is US history, 12 is for 12th grade): “Identify and evaluate the political and cultural contributions of individuals and groups to United States history from 1890 to Present [including] … Cultural and Commercial Leaders (e.g., Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Langston Hughes, Alan Greenspan)….” Wow! Once I finished looking up Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, I boggled at the odds of Langston Hughes and Alan Greenspan being mentioned in the same sentence. (2.) Scope-and-sequence problems. The NCHS standards for US history (1994) present standard 3C, grades 7-12: “Demonstrate understanding of the development of mass culture and how it changed American society by: Explaining the emergence of distinctively Amercian art and literature including the contributions of the Harlem Renaissance and the ‘Lost Generation.’” The suggested historical questions for grades 7-8 include “To what extent did the Harlem Renaissance capture the diversity of African American culture?” (p. 184). A suggested question for grades 9-12 is “How did the creative work of the Harlem Renaissance reflect the experience of African Americans?” Note that the question for grades 7-8 is more complex (involving a judgment that rests upon seeing what’s there and what’s not there) than the question for grades 9-12 (which is descriptive and just asks you to examine what’s there). They’re both fine questions, but if I’m taking them seriously, they’re not in the same league–we’re asking the grades 7-8 to do some more advanced than the older students. (3.) Scoped-and-sequenced out of any semblance of good instruction: This is all over the PA standards. The grade 3 standards typically begin with “Identify,” as in “Identify symbols and political holidays” — examples cited include the Liberty Bell, Presidents’ Day. The grade 6 standard says “Describe the purpose of symbols and holidays,” the grade nine says “Explain why symbols and holidays were created and the ideals they commemorate,” and the grade twelve standards say “Analyze the roles of symbols and holidays in society.” (These are Civics and Government standards 5.1.3K, 5.1.6.K, 5.1.9.K, and 5.1.12.K.) If all I did was teach 3rd graders to identify the Liberty Bell and didn’t talk about its significance, that’s bad instruction. And how can you talk about Presidents’ Day without talking about its purpose? And how can you differentiate between describing the purpose of something (e.g., the Statue of Liberty) and explaining why it was created? I can see why the authors wanted to keep it simple for the lower grade and then move up the bar from identify to describe to explain to analyze; that’s just being very Bloom-appropriate. But when you actually try to target that with your instruction…that sequence happens within a lesson or unit of study, not over the course of twelve years of schooling! So what about curricula that make sense? I’m coming to appreciate the value of Backwards Design as a process to plan and describe instruction; I also would love to get my hands on more of Brophy and Alleman’s work–see Brophy, J., & Alleman, J. (2006). A reconceptualized rationale for elementary social studies. Theory and Research in Social Education, 34(4), 428-454.
Comment by tchammond — October 23, 2007 #
It is amazing to see how teaching has changed over the years. Too much responsibility lays over our elemenatry school teachers tahat it has become overwhelming to teach effectively. I truly belive in experinecing the classroom first hand rather than learning about theories. Theory has a framework, but it is practice what is most important. In the case of standard-based education, with the no-so-great NCLB Act, which theory enables teachers to do a superb job? Teachers are teachers due to their creativity, enthusiasm, and the love of the job (& children).
Stacy, thanks for an enlightened evening about standards. You have made some of us appreciate our current jobs. My hat goes off to you and your colleagues alike…Keep up the great work you do in the classroom. Some day we will be compensated for the work we do.
Comment by Alex Rolón — October 24, 2007 #
Standards are just one more example of how a good idea from the field of education can be twisted by politicians. The original goal of educational standards was to ensure that there was some consistency in education – for example, so that a fourth grader in California was learning the same core of skills and concepts as a fourth grader in Pennsylvania. With the very mobile society that we live in today, its not uncommon for students to move from one town to another or from one state to another during their school years. If every school “did its own thing” kids could be left with HUGE gaps in their education. But the idea of identifying this core of standard concepts and skills for everyone evolved in to a monster that controls what teachers can and can’t do. Now, teachers can’t take advantage of the natural curiosity that kids have and explore topics that arise naturally in the classroom – if it doesn’t fit a “standard” then teachers can’t “waste time” on it because there is already too much pressure to get through the curriculum before the ALMIGHTY PSSA’s!! Forget about any kind of creativity or spontaneity!
Comment by tmiquel — October 25, 2007 #
Terri: Great job tying it together. To fill out your observation a little, note the structural problem of federalism: Fifty states (etc.) with fifty boards of ed spells fifty sets of standards. There are national standards, often prepared by the content-area associations (i.e., NCTE, NCSS, NCTM, etc.), and the state standards sometimes follow those association standards pretty closely. However, note the following: (1) Within each content area you get sub-sets. Within social studies, you might want to look at the specific history standards (from NCHS) or geography standards (from NGA) or economics standards (from NCEE) or civics standards (from CEE). (2) As state adopt standards, they are pressured not just by education partisans (“Focus on history!” “No, focus on civics!” “No, focus on economics!” “Base everything on environmental education!”) but also by policy wonks (“Don’t adopt anything that can’t be assessed cheaply and expediently!”) and good ol’ politics — check out this NYT article about one woman’s impact on social studies textbooks in Texas and throughout the US.
Comment by tchammond — October 26, 2007 #
Terri – I couldn’t have said it better myself. I just read this post after taking this week’s quiz. That’s pretty much what I answered in my quiz, just not as well.
Stacey – great job with the presentation. I really enjoyed it and appreciate the work you do.
Did anyone see that state reps were in Easton (I think it was Easton) this past week to hear teachers’ opinions and issues with NCLB since it is coming up for ‘renewal’ soon? I read that teachers were grabbing the microphones out of each others hands. The reps said they would take their concerns (PSSA, NCLB, who is included in the stats, the failure lines, possible improvements, etc.) into consideration and try to get some improvements. Hopefully it is not too late for a generation of children and teachers. Their biggest concern was the inclusion of ESL children in PSSA stats that count towards the school’s score. They argued how can we count the scores of these children and determine if they know the material when they can’t read a good portion of the questions?! How is that fair to anyone, especially the student. That is what makes NCLB a politician sticking his nose where it shouldn’t be. They should have let true educators help on the NCLB ACT. Hopefully this time around they will make improvements.
Comment by Trish — October 27, 2007 #
I definitely agree with what Terri and Trish are saying. It is going to be interesting seeing what happens with PSSAs in the future. I know that a lot of schools within the Lehigh Valley are requiring (or thinking of requiring) students to be proficient in the PSSAs before graduating. It is a great idea but when some students cannot read what is on the test it will make it impossible for students. All students and especially lower level students need to learn everyday life skills so they can survive in the world.
Comment by Rebecca Doersam — October 28, 2007 #
I never knew that a teacher needs to do so much work related to the standards. Someone asked during the presentation: are the form designers teachers? I have the same question. A few years ago I met a person at PETE & C. She was one of the designers of the PA assessment anchor. She told me that they designed the assessment anchors. Teachers should be able to assess student achievement according to the anchors. Somehow I felt that this person is an “educator”, not a teacher.
Anyway, Stacy did a great job that let us know what an elementary teacher is doing for the standards.
Comment by pchu — October 29, 2007 #
Watching the presentation on standards made me think how different things are from state to state. I agree with the previous posters on this topic that the standards have gotten out of hand and they are not listening to the main people who need to be listened to: the teachers. Teachers need to be bookkeepers more than teachers with the standards and the paper work that goes along with them.
Coming from Virginia I was used to a different set of state standards the SOLs (Standards of Learning) great name. The SOLs have been the norm in Virginia since 2001. And they have become a monster in and of themselves. Students are required to pass a certain number of the SOL tests to be able to graduate. They are extremely detailed and leave absolutely no room for teachers to deviate from the curriculum framework they are provided with. While student teaching I had to cover the entire World War I in one week have them tested and moving on to Between the Wars by the next week.
I am curious about the PA Standards and how they impact secondary classrooms. I have heard that there is not yet a PSSA’s for Social Studies? Does anyone know if that is correct? I would love to see how secondary teachers in PA deal with their standards.
Comment by Patricia Carroll — October 29, 2007 #
This is certainly an interesting topic with lots of debate. I have only really looked at the math standards and therefore found Dr. Hammond’s comments about the social studies standards very interesting. In terms of sequencing, since math by its nature builds on itself, the squencing seems generally appropriate. For example, in the Number and Operations strand: Pre-K to 2 standard, students work with whole numbers and addition and subtraction; Grades 3-5 standard adds in fractions and decimals as well as multiplication and division; Grades 6-8 standard adds in work with percents and integers as well as simple exponents and roots. For math, I think it is good to have standards in the sense of what skills students should have learned by the end of the year. However, it should not be dictating the curriculum to the point where teachers do not have the flexibility to cover the concepts as they see fit or even to allow teachers to take more time to develop a skill that students are struggling with. I also found the requirement to constantly reasses the same skill/standard to be putting a heavy burden on the teacher. How can you move forward and spend time teaching new concepts if you are constantly reassessing old ones? And we wonder why students get bored in class. Particalurly in math, lower level skills can be assessed at the same time as more advanced skills. For example, if a student cannot do basic operations, they will not be able to correctly solve a linear equation. Teachers need to by able to teach in a manner that leads to understanding of concepts and not just regurtitation of facts.
Comment by Carol Reed — October 29, 2007 #