Getting Back to Standards

1. Getting Back to Standards What should be taught?

2. A Nation at risk • The 1983 federal report, A Nation at Risk, questioned students’ ability to compete in a global economy. • The fifty states in our nation embarked on a standards-based education reform effort. • Reform implies something is wrong and changes are needed. • Standards are what teachers are supposed to teach and students are expected to know (content) and be able to do (performance).

3. Standards are useful • To guide curriculum planning to improve student learning • To encourage best practices • To guide professional development for teachers where it is needed • To prioritize resources such as money for texts, media, and the like

4. The Big question: What is the most essential knowledge of the discipline or the social studies? • Answering this question has led to a greater emphasis on students’ understanding the major concepts or the big ideas of the subject area and leaning the ways of thinking of the discipline, the particular methods used for investigation of knowledge.

5. Political outcry 1994-1995 • Proposed national history standards ended any possibility of national consensus on history standards • Conservatives feared increased federal control over the state and local boards of education • Liberals worried that the standards movement would stifle educators, be culturally biased, and lead to further standardization

6. States take corrective action • Raising standards presently has widespread approval and strikes a responsive chord with the public and political candidates. • Parents want their children to be adequately prepared for the world of work in the 21st century, which means having knowledge and basic skills such as reading and math as well as being technologically literate. • Parents want the power to make choices about the type of schools their children attend and won’t tolerate “failing schools”

7. High stakes testing • Given the current anxieties and fears, the standards movement to reform the schools by requiring students to demonstrate by tests certain knowledge and skills makes sense to parents and the public

8. State standards • Now almost every state has adopted standards for the social studies • Problem #1: Should there be one set of interdisciplinary social studies standards? Should standards be developed in each of the related areas, such as history, geography, economics, and civics? • Problem #2: How should the standards deal with the many value issues and political interpretations so common in the social studies?

9. Play it safe! • To avoid the firestorm of the detailed national history standards, most states have moved into broad statements. • Most states have built their standards developed by NCSS and the four subject areas: history, geography, civics, and economics. • Other behavioral sciences such as sociology and psychology were deemphasized. • To keep local control, school districts prepare their own version of loosely defined standards (avoid political controversy).

10. Curriculum • The plans for learning and the actual delivery of those plans.

11. Standards • Guides for use in curriculum planning • Our state has a required or recommended curriculum that is mandatory for all teachers. • The official curriculum or “framework” has been formally adopted by the state and local school district. • The taught curriculum is what teachers actually do in their classrooms. • The tested/assessed curriculum is the curriculum that is revealed in tests and other assessments given to students. These are called performance standards, which measures mastery of content/skills .

12. No Child left behind • In 2001 President Bush and Congress were not satisfied with the progress that states made. They said that the state standards had failed four subgroups of students: low-income students, minority students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. • These students have a right to learn but were challenging to educate; the goals of equity were not being met.

13. Raise the standards or else! • Through NCLB, all schools were to be held to high, measurable standards set by the individual states to raise student achievement for all groups. • The NCLB Act mandated broad accountability, requiring all states to test children in grades three through eight in reading, math, and science. • Schools failing to achieve specific performance standards face serious sanctions, including vouchers, replacing the school staff, or converting failing schools to charter schools.

14. Ambitious Act • Required states to establish their own tests aligned with their own state standards. • Standards to be clear, with measurable goals focused on basic skills and essential knowledge. • This has resulted in great diversity among state standards and what a given state considers to be proficient students.

15. Revolt against NClb • By 2004, a revolt against NCLB was building in state legislatures. • Most parents supported concept of school reform but reluctant to punish schools for failure, especially when only one subgroup in the school did not make progress. • Parents also believe it is unrealistic to expect students with disabilities and ELL to pass state tests. • Legislatures were upset over the stringency of testing requirements.

16. States’ Hands are tied! • Opting out of the NCLB framework caused states to lose funds from the federal government. • This unfunded mandate caused an outcry. • Pressure on Dept. of Education to modify some of the rules. • Some changes have occurred, more expected in future. • Many believe NCLB could be simplified and improved. States want reduced number of standards. Too long lists of standards are daunting for even the most dedicated teachers.

17. Let’s hope… • Hopefully as states prepare for the next cycle of review for standards, they will identify fewer goals for each grade level.

18. consequences of Nclb • With current emphasis on reading, math and science, many believe social studies and other subjects like art and music receive less attention. • Are teachers in Brevard County classrooms spending adequate time on social studies?

19. On the other end of the spectrum… • High profile groups of education, business and political leaders announced that NCLB competency in reading and math is just a meager beginning. • Globalization requires much greater change. • Students need to be competent in traditional academic disciplines but also know more about the world, become smarter about new sources of information, and develop good people skills, as well as being able to think outside the box.

21. So where does that leave us? • The goals of NCLB are beyond reproach and they have brought a modicum of academic progress, especially for students who otherwise might receive little attention. • In many classrooms, the social studies have been neglected. • Too many teachers are not connecting writing and reading skills to the social studies programs

22. publishers have caught on! • About five major textbook publishers produce about 90% of the textbook market. • Most teachers follow guidelines produced by their state, and the states have been influenced by the recommendations of NCSS. • State standards (especially California and Texas) influence textbook publishers, who want as broad market as possible. • For these reasons, we see a certain amount of uniformity in elementary social studies programs throughout the nation.

23. Does this look familiar? Kindergarten: Self, Family, School Second Grade: Neighborhoods Third Grade: Communities Fourth Grade: State History, Geographic Regions Fifth Grade: U.S. History, Culture, Geography Sixth Grade: World Cultures, History, Geography Seventh Grade: World Cultures, History, Geography Eighth Grade: U.S. History Ninth Grade: Civics Tenth Grade: World History Eleventh Grade: U.S. History Twelfth Grade: U.S. Government

24. How about this?

25. What’s wrong with that? • Topics are not sufficiently differentiated • Content is thin and redundant • Textbook content (in primary grades) often already known by students • No new material being introduced and no higher order thinking skills being developed

26. … and then we have the “holiday Curriculum” • Holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Presidents’ Day, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Mother’s Day dictate what is covered in the primary social studies program. • These holidays do offer the opportunity to explain much about our cultural heritage, but reliance on them suggests that many teachers feel more comfortable teaching these topics than ones that require more thoughtful preparation.

27. Repeat-repeat-repeat • Holiday activities are simply repeated grade after grade, with little attention paid to learning beyond entertainment. • Valuable social studies time is wasted. • Teachers not always sensitive to feelings of children from different backgrounds who may be offended or excluded by the holiday focus. • Children may not understand why particular religious holidays are not mentioned or are celebrated in ways unrelated to their religious meanings.

28. Where do you stand? • Do you think any changes should be made in what is taught (topics) and when it is taught (specific grade levels)? Should there be a greater emphasis on certain disciplines such as history? Do you think the expanding community pattern is the best way to organize the elementary social studies curriculum?