How Can We Move All Students Toward High Standards?

Developing a clear picture of what "high standards" means is a first step. But a plan for moving all students toward them will not automatically follow.

Creating such a plan will take some soul searching. Conflict and controversy will be inevitable. Your school will want to keep its eye on the prize -- and keep individual agendas moving toward the larger common ground -- by continually coming back to the question: What is best for all our students?

"External standards change the student-teacher relationship," write researchers Douglas J. MacIver and David A. Reuman."

Your school will want to ask a number of questions as it develops its plan. Your community and school district will also be asking questions as they develop their plan. Many of those questions may be found in GOALS 2000: An Invitation to Your Community. (Available by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN.)

These questions cannot be answered without your insights and experience and those of other classroom teachers. These questions include, but aren't limited to:

• What am I now doing in my classroom that can help students reach these standards? What lessons, activities, instructional approaches, or materials are unusually effective?

• What are we already doing in this school that can help all our students reach high standards? What are our strengths -- efforts and programs we do well and can build on?

• Are there other teachers in my school who are helping all students learn at unusually high levels? How are they doing it?

Teachers at the Accelerated Learning Laboratory (ALL) School rely less on textbooks and more on projects, so that their K-8 students learn to solve problems, integrate knowledge in core disciplines, and apply academic skills to the real world.

• Are they using technology, involving parents and families,integrating work-based and school-based learning, enlisting citizens as volunteers, tapping other resources in the community, using portfolios of student work, or other approaches that are particularly effective?

• Are there other schools that we could learn from -- schools achieving remarkable results in:
  • Reading, writing, literature, and language arts; geography, history, the arts, and civics; science and mathematics; and other core subject areas?
  • Preparing students for careers in health, electronics, and other occupational areas?
  • Including disabled students in regular instruction?

Studying the American Revolution means more than just reading about it at Fullerton Union High School in Fullerton, California.

• Offering Advanced Placement courses, the International Baccalaureate program, or other advanced instruction?
• Using satellite-delivered instruction, Internet, or local computer networks and online resources, instructional television,multimedia, and other technologies?

You may want to ask: What roadblocks stand in the way of our school realizing similar results? Which of these obstacles ought to be priorities in our school plan? GOALS 2000 encourages schools to request waivers from policies that stand in the way of their plans.

"In Pinellas County, Florida...several schools are now closing classes early one afternoon a week -- to give teacher teams a solid chunk of uninterrupted time for in-depth cooperative planning."

When asking those questions, your school will want to keep an eye on the bottom line -- student learning. You can encourage that by raising a few questions:

• What do middle or high school teachers say about the preparation of our elementary students? How do students perform after graduating from our school? What do employers say about the preparation of our graduates -- do we go out and ask them? Do students headed for college end up needing remedial courses in reading, writing, or mathematics?

• Are our students learning the basics? How well do students perform academically after taking my class? Do other teachers see particular weaknesses, as well as strengths, in the preparation of my former students?

Research and common sense tell us that students learn better if they study and work hard at it. Yet national data and everyday experience tell us that many American students are not working hard at learning.

• Most 8th and 12th graders admit that they read no more than 11 pages a day, at school and at home,in textbooks and novels and other materials, for all classes combined.
  
• Most 12th graders say they do less than 1 hour of homework a day.(Their future international competitors do up to four times as much!)

National Assessment of Educational Progress

• What academic weaknesses and strengths emerge from assessments taken by students in our school, and students in my own classes? Are student assessments in our school of a high quality? Do they measure what we teach students? Does our school use results from assessments to improve instruction?

• Does our school offer a school-to-work program? Does it include learning at worksites that is coordinated with learning at school? Are efforts to connect learning at the worksite and at school intensive and ongoing?

• When our school district announces student assessment results, do we use this opportunity to stir our faculty, students, families, and community's commitment to improving educational performance? Do we find ways to redouble this desire for improved learning, even if most of our students are performing above average?

You'll want to examine some of the reasons behind the patterns of student performance in your school:

• How hard are our students working at schoolwork? Are we challenging all students to work hard and do their best? How much reading and homework do we expect of students, and how much do they actually do?

• Do we require all students to read and write, listen and speak every day? Do we encourage every student to think mathematically, solve problems scientifically, reason historically, imagine geographically, see artistically, read critically, and communicate clearly?

"I don't find homework to be a big problem," writes Woodland Junior High School English teacher Rosemary Faucette. "I set uptight boundaries right from the start. I tell students I expect 20-30 minutes from them a night. I often make 'homework calls' early in the year. I call one student from each class a night, asking them if they have done their homework yet. If yes, I ask them to read me something. If no, I ask them when I can call back. Word travels quickly that I call students at home! This takes time, but it is worth it. But I only have to call those first few weeks...." From an online discussion among teachers on the Internet

• What additional opportunities do we provide for children who need extra time and assistance? What opportunities do we provide for enriching and extending their learning?

• Are the instructional materials in our school and in my classroom adequate?

• What incentives do our students see for working hard at learning?

• How many of our students are working part-time during the school year? How many are working 20 hours a week or more? Is that much work interfering with their studies and performance in school? Says South Dakota journalism teacher Donna Fisher, "I want business people and educators to sit down and talk about Johnny's 40-hour work schedule. He can't perform well academically if he can't stay awake."

"Inclusion" is not just a buzzword or theory at Hawthorne Elementary School.

Improving student performance in core subjects -- including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography -- is the driving force behind the National Education Goals.

But don't limit your thinking to the two goals on performance,the Student Achievement and Citizenship Goals and the Mathematics and Science Goal. Your ideas are needed on all the National Education Goals:

• Are children entering kindergarten and first grade adequately prepared?

• How many students in our school are dropping out? How many of my own students leave school without a diploma? What are we doing to keep these students in school and help them reach high academic standards?

• Do some parents and other adults in our community need help developing their literacy or job skills, or proficiency with English?

• Is our school disciplined, orderly, and conducive to learning? Do students and teachers feel safe at our school? Is it free of alcohol and drugs?

Each summer in Iowa, some 250 teachers create a five-day lesson plan for science, which they pilot test in their own classrooms that fall.

• Is time set aside during the school year and summer for teachers in our school to share ideas, plan lessons together, and learn from each other? Are there sufficient opportunities for my colleagues and me to participate in meaningful professional development?

  Are there certain instructional approaches and techniques that I would like to learn how to use more effectively?

  Am I able to take advantage of professional development opportunities such as the state Geographic Alliance, the state or local Writing Project, workshops and networks offered by the state Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Science Teachers Association or the Association for the Advancement of American Science, and other professional associations?

  Are there opportunities to collaborate with scholars and researchers? Am I able to participate in online discussions among teachers using computer networks connected to the Internet?

  Also, does my school offer plenty of assistance and support to new teachers so that their first year in the classroom is a success for them and their students?

"Parents are everywhere, helping students in halls and classrooms" at Elm Street Elementary School, says kindergarten teacher Nancy Royal.

• Does every child in our school and in my classroom have someone at home who is encouraging him or her to do homework and work hard at learning? Are we reaching out to enlist every parent in a partnership for learning? Does every family make sure its children attend school regularly and arrive on time each day?

[A complete list of the National Education Goals and Objectives can be found in Appendix V]

These questions can help your school identify obstacles -- and opportunities -- in the road to high standards for all students. The process of creating a plan can help your school recognize its strengths and weaknesses, and set priorities. Your faculty won't be able to tackle each priority on its own. New partners will be needed, partners from through out your community.

Many partners want to help. Steve Piippo, a teacher at Richland High School in Washington, found that sometimes to get help you simply have to ask for it. He created a course in Material Science and Technology...

"about seven years ago when I was teaching an old-fashioned materials course. Students were asking why certain materials behave certain ways -- Why is glass brittle? Why does metal stretch? These were pretty sophisticated questions that I needed help answering. So I contacted Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories. Battelle has an entire group of materials people. That led to a partnership, and from there the curriculum has continued evolving." The partnership for Piippo and his students continued growing to include Boeing Commercial Aircraft Corporation, Corning Glass, NASA, local industry, the community college, and the university."

U.S. Department of Education, 1992

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[What Is Meant By "High Standards"] [A Partner...]