We have no reason to believe that making standards tougher will improve test scores, much less improve student learning. Common sense would suggest the opposite might occur. As bars go up, students may miss the target by a greater margin — if standards themselves have not caused our academic deficiencies.
The idea behind more demanding standards seems to be that if we raise the bar, students will leap higher as teachers work harder. Where is the proof that this can or will occur? What is the rationale underlying this belief? As the bar rises higher and higher, human nature suggests that at least some students will simply toss up their hands. Harder material will only discourage students who have already fallen behind.
As I write this, I am struck by another irony. The possibly nonexistent “crisis of standards” that resulted in the Common Core may be in the process of creating the very crisis that the Core was allegedly intended to fix, at least in America’s more disadvantaged districts. A sudden shift in standards leaves lower-scoring students technically farther behind than they were before, a fact well documented by recent Smarter Balanced and especially PARCC scores, scores that proved an epic fail across all the states that ventured to try the new tests. Many more students failed the PARCC test than had failed their state tests the year before.
Harder tests create higher failure rates. No evidence yet exists to suggest that these tests necessarily will boost learning. The mere fact of a harder test does nothing without remedial education and increased student support. Only additional time and support will improve learning – and these tests are stealing away time that might be used to provide that support.
How many teachers are sitting in Common Core, test-related meetings and professional development seminars this year when they might be tutoring students instead? We can’t know the answer, but I would venture to guess the number is somewhere in the millions. The educational cost will necessarily be high.
Eduhonesty: I do appreciate the many half-day subbing opportunities provided by these meetings. I try to fulfill the lesson plans left behind. Do all the other subs filling in during these meetings follow the plans? How many cannot? I am endorsed for the whole core curriculum but that makes me a pretty exotic beast. Especially in disadvantaged and urban districts, sometimes no sub can be found to cover for teachers. Then students are added to another teacher’s classes or some teacher gives up a planning period to sub. In the latter case, maybe papers don’t get graded. Or maybe sub plans become abbreviated. A history teacher can’t always teach a chemistry lesson. Ideally, sub plans should be bullet-proof, reinforcement activities that can be done without the history teacher knowing how to bond atoms. Unfortunately, those plans can and do go wrong. Students may act up when a sub takes the helm as well. Subbing overall results in substandard learning opportunities.
Sigh.