Q: do public schools need state-mandated educational standards?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 17, 1997 | by Christopher T. Cross, | Myron Liberman

State governments also have a great deal of legal authority to ensure educational quality. The Constitution grants the states the authority to provide free education to all children. The Supreme Court has upheld this authority, acknowledging states' fundamental interests in ensuring that children are educated to be productive individuals and responsible citizens.

The court has asserted that "education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments [as] it is the very foundation of good citizenship" (Brown v. Board of Education). In other decisions, the court has held that "providing public schools ranks at the very apex of the function of a state" (Wisconsin v. Yoder), end that one objective of education is "the inculcation of fundamental values necessary to the maintenance of a democratic system" (Bethel School District No 403 v. Fraser). The setting of academic standards, we have argued, helps states to meet their responsibility.

There is some early evidence to suggest that rigorous standards aligned with meaningful assessments can raise the quality of the education system. Cornell University Professor John Bishop examined states, nations and provinces that required students to pass exams tied to their curriculum at the end of high school. He discovered that such systems had higher standards for beginning teachers, paid higher teacher salaries, targeted more resources on core instructional functions, had students who scored higher in mathematics and geography and employed more teachers with a major in the subject that they teach.

Academic standards, however, are not the silver bullet for improving public education. The setting of academic standards does not mean that all or even most students suddenly are going to meet them. The adoption of air-quality standards did not suddenly improve the quality of air in Los Angeles. A great deal of work and new technologies went into reducing the pollutants that came from automobiles and factories. The work and technologies, however, were guided and coordinated by the air-quality standards. Similarly, content standards are a necessary starting point toward meaningful education reform and increased student achievement.

Cross is president of the Council for Basic Education and the Maryland Board of Education, and led the educational in initiative of the Business Roundtable from 1991-94.

No: The standards the public-education lobby more than students.

Since publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, educational reform has been a growth industry in the United States. Public-school choice, restructuring, outcome-based education, back to the basics -- the educational-reform movement, if we can call it that, has generated a number of submovements that claim to hold the key to significant improvements in educational achievement. Perhaps none of these submovements has gone as far or as fast as "the standards movement."

The standards movement is based on the argument that U.S. students do not study under clear and rigorous standards with high-stakes penalties for failure to meet the standards. For example, no matter how poorly students achieve, some colleges are willing to accept them. The fact that one out of every four college freshmen in the United States takes a remedial course illustrates the magnitude of the problem. Remediation likely would not be needed if K-12 schools had adopted high standards, and students knew they could not be admitted to college without meeting them.