States ‘Making Good Progress’ on Student Achievement Standards

For those who worry that schools today lack standards, there is encouraging news in the American Federation of Teachers’ third annual report card on states’ efforts to raise the achievement bar. The Washington-based teachers union found that 49 states are developing standards for what all students should know at various grade levels. Of these, 14 have vastly improved standards they had drafted last year. “Most states are firmly committed to raising their academic standards, and many are making good progress,” said Sandra Feldman, president of the 900,000-member union.

California was among eight states judged “most improved” and was singled out as having exemplary standards in English and social studies. In most other states, however, those two subjects proved the most nettlesome. History standards were often too vague, such as: “Students should be able to identify and explain how events and changes occurred in significant historical periods.” Much better, the union said, was this: “Students should be able to describe how United States federalism was transformed during the Great Depression by the policies of the New Deal.”

Adding its two cents’ worth on the subject, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington found an array of weaknesses in 28 states’ English standards. One criterion examined whether the standards were written “in clear English prose.” On that score, five states--Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee--flunked. Fuzzy jargon (as in Ohio’s line about making sure students can “demonstrate appropriate media to clarify attitudes toward cultural diversity”) would hinder “even highly educated citizens [from] understanding what is expected of students in these states,” the report by Harvard researcher Sandra Stotsky said.