A Look at the Education Crisis
Tests, Standards, and the Future of American Education
- Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF and Scribd versions.
- Download the report:
PDF - Download introduction & summary:
PDF - Read it in your browser:
Scribd
In many ways standards-based school reform is at a crossroads. On one side, the movement has made tremendous strides. The Common Core State Standards Initiative, known simply as Common Core, is now strongly established in more than 40 states. Many teachers believe that the new, higher academic standards have helped them improve instruction. And, most importantly, a solid body of data demonstrates that the standards-based reform movement has shown success in raising student outcomes.
In some areas, outcome indicators are on the rise. Over the past two decades, for instance, the number of students of color performing at grade level in reading and math has more than doubled in elementary and middle school. Meanwhile, high school graduation rates are the highest they have ever been: 81 percent of the class of 2013 received their diploma within four years.
But clearly much work remains. Achievement gaps in many subject areas remain large. For example, only 21 percent of low-income fourth-grade students achieved proficiency on the 2015 NAEP reading test compared to 52 percent of nonpoor students. And if students of color graduated at the same rate as their white peers, they would receive nearly two hundred thousand more diplomas each year.
In a way, the question for education advocates boils down to: What’s next? For a few vocal observers, the answer to this question is—surprisingly—anything but standards-based reform. In other words, these observers believe that the standards-based reform effort—and its associated assessments and accountability efforts—have been a total failure. In a policy memo released last year, Kevin Welner and William Mathis of the National Education Policy Center argued that “we as a nation have devoted enormous amounts of time and money to the focused goal of increasing test scores, and we have almost nothing to show for it.”
Some, such as blogger Anthony Cody, argue that policymakers should not really even focus on raising standards or improving tests or reforming accountability systems. Instead, Cody A Look at the Education Crisis | Center for American Progress:
