ACTA's Must-Reads

In "Kim" the Lama wrote, "Education is greatest blessing if of best sorts. Otherwise no earthly use."

This certainly applies to standards of learning. Good standards can codify a solid core of knowledge and skills for many students. Bad standards force good programs out and do damage to those who would have done better if left alone.

We have already tried de facto national standards in math and science, and I believe English and History, each developed by private organizations but accepted by the educational establishment as 'The National Standards.' A large fraction of all states have followed these ideas in development of their own standards, such that most states have adopted content-poor, knowledge-poor, process- and affect-rich programs. This has been encouraged by the Education and Human Resources division of the National Science Foundation, both by large grants to support writing of programs on the ideas of the 'standards' and by leveraging grants of marginal dollars for school districts into designation of the kind of instruction a whole district could use.

The results of this process can seen in the multiple reports from the Fordham Foundation on the "State of the Standards" for math, science, language and history.

Singapore and Japan have done well with their standards and their aligned curricula. When Japan tried to adopt the ideas of creative problem solving at the expense of content, performance declined. This indicates that differential success is not just the result of cultural or social differences. Content matters.

The benefit of good standards could be substantial, but the cost of uniformly applied bad standards could be far more than the benefit of good standards.

With regard to content of the standards and what students should know by the end of high school, I strongly suggest looking at the California Standards as an example of clear, high standards from K-12 aligned in such a way as to generate a logical progression through the curriculum. These are not the only set of strong standards to use as possible models, but the do indicate that this discussion need not begin with a blank slate.

I have to agree with most of what Mike McKeown says. And I'm not apt to take the recent Bill Bennett, along with Rod Paige, as any kind of education gurus. NCLB has failed. Well, no surprise to me. The best thing the federal government could do is butt out. There is no reason to think that on the whole, the federals can run the schools any better than the states and localities. Bill Bennett types might be able to come up with some kind of useful standards, but people of other persuasions will impose more of the dreck that has gotten us where we are now. Anyone at goacta think national standards in "multicultural education" or "cultural competency" will cure their heartburn?

A few words about math and science, since this is what I know best, if I know anything at all. The National Science Foundation used to be a great outfit. Bill Bennett once told me it was the best agency in Washington. Sadly, it has gone way downhill, pandering to the politicians to get more money, to the detriment of American science. Their educational programs are among the worst things they do now. (Social engineering according to race and gender being stiff competition.)

As to performance vs. creativity and understanding in math, it doesn't have to be one or the other. I have a lot of experiencing dealing with Asian and American graduate students and postdocs who use pretty high level math in science. The Asians outperform the Americans, on the whole, but there is usually something missing (which can be instilled, to a greater or lesser extent). The best of the Americans (and Europeans), the ones who can do math but also think math, even creatively, are still by far the ones leading theoretical science.

Why it has to be one thing or the other in K-12 schools -- robot-like learning of math operations or fuzzy-headed "conceptual" math without real understanding or skills -- is beyond me.

What should a college-bound high school graduate know?

I am interested in why your point of reference is the hypothetical student at a tertiary institution, rather than a hypothetical person on the verge of having to support himself and start a family, or a hypothetical voting citizen.

Consider:

1. What preparatory instruction in literacy and numeracy is required to be able to absorb the training toward a skilled occupation of middling demands (say, tool-and-die or nursing)?

2. About a quarter of the population will tell the pollster they pay attention to public affairs; in and amongst this minority, how much in the way of formal instruction in the social sciences have they had; and, all else being equal, how much does an additional increment of instruction in the social sciences increase the liklihood of civic engagement?

3. What relationship is there between an additional increment of scientific education at age 14 (let us say) and the additional increment of probability one will enter a scientific or technical occupation later in life?

If one can answer the first two questions, one might have answers to what ought to be the content of a fundamental and civic education (for primary schooling) upon which one might erect a superstructure of vocational education (as secondary schooling). If one can answer the third, one might have an answer as to the proper balance between natural science and the remainder in secondary schooling of the liberal type.

Is there anyone who is an adept of industrial or educational psychology who might shed some light here? Or anyone with an idea for what might be an optimal 'global budget' for liberal education (whether in secondary or tertiary schools) over and above basic and vocational education?

I've found Eric Hirsch's Core Knowledge standards excellent for elementary and junior high education. This might seem hypocritical, as I've opposed the imposition of core curriculum at the college level. But that was always my main point: all the complaints leveled at "the ignorance of the incoming American college student" pertained to knowledge a student could easily pick up before high school, and which could be reinforced by rigorous AP-style high school classes (and these AP classes could be open to many more students if they were prepared well by the 8th grade).

For example, a child who has read and absorbed E. H. Gombrich's *A Little History of the World* knows as much European history as s/he needs to comprehend literate culture. And if you're familiar with Gombrich's work, you'll know it's rather short, vividly written, and sophisticated intellectually. If more teachers read books like this to their students, we'd have much smarter students.

I do think high school should offer certain vocational options for juniors and seniors, but high school academics should be as rigorous and standardized as K-8 in the Core Knowledge framework (which Hirsch describes as about 50% Core and 50% teacher-elective).

American public schools need a demanding, knowledge- and skills-based curriculum. This curriculum should be layed out clearly for teachers, administrators, and families, just as the Core Knowledge Foundation has been doing for each grade level.

And I must admit that I like the Bennett idea of a national curriculum with a national, no-stakes exam. The larger problem is funding. A Core Knowledge-style education for K-12 would necessitate new textbooks, new supplementary materials (from films to computer software), and so on. Where would the money come from?

Purchases of textbooks are not capital expenditures and new textbooks can and will be purchased as the old are decommissioned (i.e. every year or so).

A more pertinent question is how many of the current crop employed in primary and secondary education have the education and intellect to implement what you suggest. Here in New York, it is required to have an M.Ed. degree if one wishes to work in public education. The time and expense provide a decisively discouraging hurdle to some. Critics of teacher training colleges (e.g. Thos. Sowell) have maintained that that the effectiveness of that screen as a discouraging factor is positively correllated with the intellectual ability and seriousness of the aspirant. Also, among administrators hereabouts, it is not unusual to find specimens whose entire professional preparation was toward the receipt of degrees in 'education' or 'guidance and counseling', which is to say that they were trained to manage students but not teach them much of anything.

I seriously doubt you are going to make aesthetes or intellectual hobbyists out of more than a modest minority of the populace. They will have other pastimes, and investment in liberal education for them will be time and effort suboptimally expended. Nearly everyone must labor, and most will be motivated to acquire a skilled trade, and a large minority retain an interest in the world so much with us. Promoting a capacity to savor imaginative literature or Baroque music is desirable but a lower priority.

Art, it's not a matter of making aesthetes or admirers of poetry. It's a matter of producing an intellectually competent citizenry, one capable of making informed decisions about the world around them. So long as everyone can vote (a situation more and more up in the air -- thanks Diebold!), I hope we are all as smart as possible.

"Readers are welcome to comment on testing as a national strategy for setting educational standards--but what I'm even more interested in is what readers have to say about what those standards ought to be, particularly for high school seniors."

I am a simple dog: Can I please get a FEW people in here who know how to write simple, complete, and correct English sentences? I cannot get over the implacable illiteracy I see daily, coupled with straight honors-level grading on transcripts. Professionals like lawyers and doctors get sued over such damage.

Sir Dog: Of course high school grades don't tell you much. In most schools, from what I can tell, attending class regularly and not killing your teacher will get you a B average.

As for why this is, too long to go into here, but a couple of simple reasons come to mind: the high school completion rate is already shockingly low, about 70%; and more like 50% among underperforming minorities. Especially as the underperforming groups become a larger share of the student population, due to the middle class's failure to reproduce itself, the greater the pressures to dumb down standards are going to become. (You can see why I feel compelled not to reveal my identity.)

Have you considered asking job applicants for a writing sample or an essay? I don't know if that's feasible. We do it for admissions to our graduate program. It's not too hard to frame a question such that the applicant has to produce something genuine, i.e. not plagiarized. It's easy to tell a lot, quickly, from what they produce. It might sound like a lot of trouble, but better than gnashing your teeth ever after.

Karen Eliot:

Civic education is a concern. However, only a fraction of the man-hours expended in primary and secondary schooling above and beyond literacy and numeracy act to provide background useful in making sense of what you read in the newspapers (about a quarter when and where I attended school). History, geography, civics, statistics, and principles of economics would be helpful toward the end of educating the electorate. Biology, English literature, and music appreciation help exercise the mind but are not efficient in the realm of civic education.

If the schooling the young are receiving now is similar to that I received a generation ago, a great deal of time is wasted in haphazard instruction in 'social studies', geography is neglected, local and regional history is neglected, civics is neglected, economics is taught by teachers who are ill-instructed in it, and few students have the preparation to comprehend basic statistics.