A Formula for Maintaining High Acacemic Standards

Parents, school staff, state, and national leaders are calling for school reform. They point to a succession of statistics that indicate that a majority of American students are failing to reach their potential as learners. Business leaders and state legislators are demanding that schools find ways to improve achievement at all levels. More assessment, different forms of assessment, and accountability programs that stress the establishment of standards for student performance are some of the many methods currently being explored or implemented by school districts around the country. What is the formula for achieving high academic standards and will those standards improve a student’s achievement? This is a major issue facing schools today and will continue to plague administrators in the years to come.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) issued several reports during the 1970’s and 1980’s revealing that a majority of students were not developing intellectual capacities necessary for democratic citizenship, lifelong learning, and productive employment in the economic system. The studies compiled by Mullis, Owen, and Phillips, indicated that most studen

John J. Patrick, author of “Achievement of Goal Three of the Six National Education Goals,” an update of his earlier work, “Student Achievement in Core Subjects”, lists several factors associated with higher student achievement in core subjects. He suggested that active leaning was a major factor associated with higher achievement. Students who said their teachers required them to interpret and apply knowledge to the completion of tasks tended to score much higher on assessments than did respondents who reported that their lessons were limited mostly to passive reception of knowledge through lectures and textbooks.

John Stevens, Executive Director of the Texas Business and Education Coalition, recently testified before the National Educational Goals Panel chaired by Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson. The topic of his address concerned Exploring the Rapid Gains in Achievement made by Minority and Urban Students in Texas and North Carolina. He pointed to a number of factors that contributed to a slow but steady growth in test scores in all grade levels of students in those states between 1992 and 1996. He concluded that gains were due to leadership from the business community, which provided stability to the educational reform process. He noted the political leadership of both states stressed an incremental approach in which reform policies included clear teacher objectives by grade, high academic standards for all students, statewide assessments linked to those standards, accountability systems with consequences for results, and shifting resources to schools with more disadvantaged students.

Recognizing that some form of school reform was needed, President George Bush along with a number of state governors proclaimed a set of six (now 8) national education goals in February of 1990. Referred to as Goals 2000, this legislation called upon states to develop reform initiatives for their own systems and bring student achievement up to a par with a set of national goals and standards by the year 2000. The object of these goals was to prompt improvements in schools and raise the level of student achievement. The third goal states: “By the year 2000, American students will leave grades four, eight, and twelve having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography; and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so that they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our society” (Patrick 2).

Some topics in this essay:
Core Subjects”, Fordham Foundation, Parents Patrick, Black Churches, Referred Goals, School Curriculum”, Success Parents, North Carolina, Owen Phillips, Mathematics NCTM, academic standards, student achievement, core subjects, national education, school reform, achievement core, achievement core subjects, achieving academic, social studies/social science, english mathematics, subjects school, factor associated achievement, subject matter, “student achievement core, challenging subject matter,