A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Components of National Education Standards in the United States

Carolyn A. McCarty

Standards

The Current Situation

The United States government does not determine what students should know and be able to do in any subject at any level of schooling. Expectations and standards for students' performance are the responsibility of state and local authorities; therefore, these vary greatly by state, district, and even school.

However, at an education summit held in 1989, President Bush and the 50 state governors agreed upon 6 national education goals for the United States to achieve by the year 2000. In 1994, two more goals were added and Congress codified the National Education Goals.

The goals, created as a framework for improving students' achievement, refocus the objectives of education, while leaving specific tactics for instituting them to state and local governments and to schools. They function, in part, as a general set of standards toward which all Americans should strive.

The National Educational Goals state that by the year 2000:

1. All children in the United States will start school ready to learn.

2. The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent.

3. U.S. students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matters including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography; and every school will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our Nation's modern economy.

4. The Nation's teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all students for the next century.

5. U.S. students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.

6. Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and to exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

7. Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol, and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning.

8. Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the National Goals have received public support because they "reflect the maturation of a still-growing political consensus that American schools must establish clear standards of performance to which all students will be held" (U.S. Department of Education [USED] 1990). In fact, the 1990 and 1991 Gallop Polls found that over 75 percent of Americans surveyed attached "very high" or "high" priority to the six goals that had been proposed by the time of the survey (Gallup 1991).

The goal toward which the general public feels the least amount of progress has been made is the goal specifically targeting achievement in science and mathematics (USED 1993b). The U.S. Department of Education has laid out three objectives related to this goal: (1) strengthen mathematics and science education throughout the system, especially in the early grades; (2) increase the number of teachers with a substantive background in mathematics and science by 50 percent; and, (3) significantly increase the number of U.S. undergraduate and graduate students, especially women and minorities, who complete degrees in mathematics, science, and engineering (USED 1990).

The Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which codified the Goals, established federal support for voluntary state-based systemic reform that includes the development and implementation of high academic standards. The legislation called for state plans to include the development and implementation of content standards in core subjects, student assessments linked through performance standards, and opportunity-to-learn standards or strategies. The legislation also provided funding to states to support systematic state reform based on state-developed plans (Council of Chief State School Officers [CSSO] 1995).

Also as a part of this legislation, Congress established the Goals Panel as an independent federal agency. The eighteen-member bipartisan Goals Panel consists of 8 Governors, 4 members of Congress, 4 State Legislators, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, and the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy (The National Education Goals Panel 1994).

The Goals Panel is responsible for:

• monitoring and reporting progress towards the Goals;

• building a national consensus for the reforms necessary to achieve education improvement;

• reporting on promising or effective actions being taken at the national, state, and local levels to achieve the Goals;

• identifying actions that federal, state, and local governments should take to enhance progress towards achieving the Goals and to provide all students with fair opportunity to learn;

• and collaborating with the newly-created National Education Standards and Improvement Council to review the criteria for voluntary content, performance, and opportunity-to-learn standards (The National Education Goals Panel 1994).

The formulation of the National Goals has produced a dialogue among legislators, educators, and members of school boards throughout the United States that is focused on improving education standards for all students in U.S. schools. This dialogue and the directives and funding embodied in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act have led nearly every state to design and implement curriculum frameworks or guidelines, and many have developed or are in the process of developing assessment instruments to monitor the schools' progress towards higher standards.

National Standards

Despite favorable public opinion polls for national goals in education, the public has remained divided on the need for formally defined national standards. Proponents of national standards have raised several arguments supporting the need for developing such an explicit national standard (National Council on Education Standards and Testing [NCEST] 1992). These persons argue that formulating national standards would encourage the states to raise their own standards, and that by defining a common set of goals, the quality of our schools may improve, leading to greater equality between advantaged and disadvantaged school districts. Moreover, standards for the nation would allow our diverse population to share expectations and learning opportunities by coordinating efforts and pooling resources and ideas.

On the other hand, many objections have been advanced to national standards (NCEST 1992). Some argue that establishing national standards will detract from many positive local reforms and inhibit the development of initiatives at the state and local levels. Others worry about the effects of such standards, fearing that they will result in minimum standards that will drag down the entire system and fail to consider our most capable students. Some educators also worry that national standards would lead to a national curriculum, with the federal government defining education policies and practices and imposing them in a top-down fashion. Still others view national standards as unnecessary, since they believe standards without resources and strategies would be of no help to school systems.

Despite the debate, the general consensus has been moving toward establishing some form of national standards for education. For example, data from a national sample of citizens in 1991 revealed that 68 percent of Americans favor developing a voluntary national test that would measure and compare abilities of students by school districts across the country (Gallup 1991).

Voluntary national standards. Thus far, efforts to construct national standards for what should be taught in each of the major subject areas have resulted in voluntary national standards for mathematics, science, and history. Those for arts, geography, civics and government, English language arts, and foreign languages are also under development. Funding for the development of voluntary national standards has come from a variety of sources, including the U.S. Department of Education and an assortment of nongovernmental organizations.

In 1989, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) published curriculum standards outlining the mathematics that should be included in order to create school programs of the best quality, as well as the instructional conditions needed for students to learn mathematics.

Table 2 lists the topical areas within which curriculum standards were developed at three different grade levels: K-4, 5-8, and 9-12.

Table 2—Overview of NCTM-recommended curriculum by various grade levels

These guidelines did not originate with the U.S. Department of Education but rather stemmed from the recommendations of many different experts and experienced teachers of mathematics. Consequently, the guidelines were not promulgated by a governmental agency, and there is no means to ensure uniform acceptance or enforce their implementation across the United States. Instead, adoption and implementation in individual states, districts, and schools is voluntary.

Despite this, the adoption of the NCTM standards has been widespread; over 80 percent of the states have modified their mathematics framework so that they are in line with the NCTM standards. Moreover, numerous professional and administrative agencies are using them as a model for their own standards (Shriner, Kim, and Ysseldyke 1993).

The National Science Education Standards were published in 1995. This document sets standards for science teaching, professional development for teachers of science, assessment in science education, content of science, science education programs, and science education systems (National Research Council 1995). These standards will be used to guide the development of science education in elementary and secondary schools. However, like the mathematics standards, they serve as general guidelines rather than enforced requirements, and their implementation will be dependent on acceptance at the state, district, or school level.

Voluntary standards in history were published in the spring of 1996. These standards, released by UCLA's National Center for History in the Schools, encompass voluntary standards for teaching history from kindergarten through 12^th grade. A press release announcing the appearance of the national history standards states that they "were created in cooperation with 33 national education organizations and more than 1,000 educators from all regions of the country" (World Wide Web April 3, 1996). As with projects dealing with standards in math and science, the goal of the history standards is to serve as a benchmark to guide teachers and school districts in the development of curriculum.

State-Level Initiatives

States have developed various different initiatives to help their schools meet the National Education Goals. Most states have formulated curriculum frameworks or guidelines that assist schools and school districts in providing students with common academic standards. Although the format and content of these guidelines vary, most states have developed separate guidelines by grade level for what are considered the four core academic subjects: English, math, science, and social studies (American Federation of Teachers [AFT] 1996). Most states are also revising their standards documents in order to improve and strengthen the standards within their state. The subject-by-subject analysis of these documents conducted by the AFT revealed that math and science standards in most states are clearer and more thoroughly grounded in content than are those for English and social studies. This weakness of state standards for English and social studies was attributed to the later development of 'national' standards by the National Council of Teachers of English, and the controversy which surrounded the content of the 'national' history standards developed by the National Center for History in the Schools (AFT 1996).

Monitoring Achievement

Although no formal evaluation of current standards exists per se at the national level, ongoing monitoring of scholastic achievement occurs through the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Since it began in 1969, NAEP has offered the only nationally representative and continuous assessment of student performance in various subjects (Mullis, Dossey, Foertsch, Jones, and Gentile 1991). The students in the sample, tested at ages 9, 13, and 17, take tests of their knowledge and skills in reading, mathematics, science, writing, and history/geography. In addition, students provide information about themselves, their families, and their schools. Proficiency in each of the subject content areas is broken down so that the scores of geographic regions (Northeast, Southeast, Central, and West), as well as the scores of each state, can be differentiated. The data, reported in the form of aggregate statistics, are used by the states to compare their students' performance to that of the rest of the country.

Many states also conduct their own assessments. As states began to develop their own curriculum frameworks in recent years, many of them aligned these frameworks with assessment instruments in order to better assess the degree to which the curriculum was being learned. A recent survey by the National Education Goals Panel of state assessment systems indicated that 45 states have statewide assessment systems (National Education Goals Panel 1996). This survey, which profiled state assessment systems in place during 1994-95, indicated that 23 states reported that their state standards, curriculum frameworks, or state goals were aligned with their assessments, and another 21 states were in the process of aligning them. These state assessment instruments are generally developed under the direction of state department of education staff with the help of teachers, curriculum coordinators, other educators, and occasionally representatives of business and industry (Braswell 1992).

The subject areas most commonly tested by state assessments include reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies. Grades 4, 8, and 11 are assessed most regularly, with 33 states testing in grade 4, 40 states testing in grade 8, and 32 states testing in grade 11. The assessment results are used for school accountability in 40 states, and for student accountability in 26 states (National Education Goals Panel 1996). The American Federation of Teachers (1996) report on states' efforts to raise academic standards noted that 10 states currently require their students to pass high school exit exams linked to the state's standards and 10 more plan to do so in the future.

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[The Educational Structure of the United States School System - References]

[Components of National Education Standards in the United States - Part 2]