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Purpose of this work

 

Many educators see the publication of the now-famous report A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) as the initiating event of the modern standards movement. Few calls to action have been so often quoted as the dire pronouncements from that report: "The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people. . . . We have, in effect been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament" (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, p. 5).

Amid growing concerns about the educational preparation of the nation's youth, President Bush and the nation's governors called an Education Summit in Charlottesville in September 1989. That summit concluded with the establishment of six broad goals for education that were to be reached by the year 2000. The goals and their rationale are published under the title The National Education Goals Report: Building a Nation of Learners (National Education Goals Panel [NEGP], 1991). Two of the goals (3 and 4) related specifically to academic achievement:

Goal 3: By the year 2000, American students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 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 they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy.

Goal 4: By the year 2000, U.S. students will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement.

The goals were outlined in the State of the Union of 1990, a year which also saw congress establish the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP); the following year, congress established the National Council on Education Standards and Testing (NCEST). Collectively, these two groups were charged with addressing unprecedented questions regarding American education such as, What is the subject matter to be addressed? What types of assessments should be used? What standards of performance should be set?

These efforts had an impact on national subject-matter organizations, who sought to establish standards in their respective areas. Many of these groups looked for guidance from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), which preempted the public mandate for standards by publishing the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics in 1989. The National Academy of Sciences used the apparent success of the NCTM standards as the impetus for urging Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander to underwrite national standards-setting efforts in other content areas. According to Diane Ravitch, then an assistant secretary of education, "Alexander bankrolled the projects out of his office's discretionary budget" (in Diegmueller, 1995, p. 5). The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) quickly launched independent attempts to identify standards in science. Efforts soon followed in the fields of civics, dance, theater, music, art, English language arts, history, and social studies, to name a few. (An overview of the movement to establish standards in the core subject areas is reported in Table 1.1) Since 1990 the movement has acquired considerable momentum at the state level as well. As of 1999, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and every state except Iowa have set or are setting common academic standards for students. (American Federation of Teachers, 1999).

Table 1.1
1983 A Nation at Risk is published, calling for reform of the U.S. education system.
1983 Bill Honig, elected state superintendent of California public schools, begins a decade-long revision of the state public school system, developing content standards and curriculum frameworks.
1987 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) writing teams begin to review curriculum documents and draft standards for curriculum and evaluation.
1989 Charlottesville, VA: The nation's fifty governors and President Bush adopt National Education Goals for the year 2000. One goal names five school subjects-English, mathematics, science, history, and geography-for which challenging national achievement standards should be established.
1989 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics publishes Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics.
1989 Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) publishes Science for all Americans, describing what "understandings and habits of mind are essential for all citizens in a scientifically literate society."
1990 In his State of the Union address, President Bush announces the National Education Goals for the year 2000; shortly thereafter, he and Congress establish a National Education Goals Panel (NEGP).
1990 The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) is appointed by the Secretary of Labor to determine the skills young people need to succeed in the world of work.
1990 The New Standards Project, a joint project of the National Center on Education and the Economy and the Learning Research and Development Center, is formed to create a system of standards for student performance in a number of areas.
1990, fall: The Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL) begins the systematic collection, review, and analysis of noteworthy national and state curriculum documents in all subject areas.
1991 SCANS produces What Work Requires of Schools, which describes the knowledge and skills necessary for success in the workplace.
1991, June: Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander asks Congress to establish the National Council on Education Standards and Testing (NCEST). The purpose of NCEST is to provide a vehicle for reaching bipartisan consensus on national standards and testing.
1992, Jan: NCEST releases its report, Raising Standards for American Education, to Congress, proposing an oversight board, the National Education Standards and Assessment Council (NESAC), to certify content and performance standards as well as "criteria" for assessments.
1992, Jan: The National Council for the Social Studies names a task force to develop curriculum standards.
1992, spring: The National History Standards Project receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education.
1992, spring: The National Association for Sport and Physical Education begins work on Outcomes for Quality Physical Education Programs, which will form the basis of standards in Physical Education.
1992, June: The Consortium of National Arts Education receives funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities to write standards in the arts.
1992, July: The Center for Civic Education receives funds from the U.S. Department of Education and the Pew Charitable Trusts for standards development in civics and government.
1992, July: The Geography Standards Education Project creates the first draft of geography standards.
1992, Oct: The Committee for National Health Education Standards is funded by the American Cancer Society.
1992, Nov: The Bush administration awards funds to create English standards to a consortium of three organizations: the National Council of Teachers of English, the International Reading Association, and the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois.
1993, Jan: The National Standards in Foreign Language Project becomes the seventh and final group to receive federal funds for standards development.
1993, April: McREL publishes its first technical report on standards, The Systematic Identification and Articulation of Content Standards and Benchmarks: An Illustration Using Mathematics.
1993 AAAS's Project 2061 publishes Benchmarks for Science Literacy.
1993, Nov: NEGP's Technical Planning Group issues "Promises to Keep: Creating High Standards for American Students," referred to as the "Malcolm Report." The report calls for the development of a National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC), which would give voluntary national standards a stamp of approval.
1993, Nov: The National Research Council, with major funding from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, establishes the National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment (NCSESA) to oversee standards development in content, teaching, and assessment.
1994, Jan: McREL publishes The Systematic Identification and Articulation of Content Standards and Benchmarks: Update, January 1994, which provides a synthesis of standards for science, mathematics, history, geography, communication and information processing, and life skills.
1994, Feb: The Standards Project for English Language Arts, a collaborative effort of the Center for the Study of Reading, the International Reading Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English, publishes the draft Incomplete Work of the Task Forces of the Standards Project for English Language Arts.
1994, March: President Clinton signs into law Goals 2000: Educate America Act. This legislation creates the National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC) to certify national and state content and performance standards, opportunity-to-learn standards, and state assessments; adds two new goals to the national education goals; brings to nine the number of areas for which students should demonstrate "competency over challenging subject matters." The subject areas now covered include foreign languages, the arts, economics, and civics and government.
1994, March: The U.S. Department of Education notifies the Standards Project for the English Language Arts that it will not continue funding for the project, citing a lack of progress.
1994, March: The Consortium of National Arts Education Associations, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, publishes the arts standards (dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts).
1994, fall: The National Council on Social Studies publishes Curriculum Standards for the Social Studies: Expectations for Excellence.
1994, Oct: Lynne Cheney, past chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), criticizes the U.S. history standards in the Wall Street Journal two weeks before their release. (NEH, with the U.S. Department of Education, funded development of the U.S. history standards.)
1994, Oct: U.S. history standards are released; world history and K-4 history are released shortly thereafter.
1994, Oct: The Geography Education Standards Project publishes Geography for life: National Geography Standards.
1994, Nov: The Center for Civic Education, funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the Pew Charitable Trusts, publishes standards for civics and government education.
1995, Jan: Gary Nash, National History Standards Project co-director, agrees to revise the history standards; the U.S. Senate denounces the history standards in a 99-1 vote.
1995, April: The U.S. Department of Education withdraws assurance of a $500,000 grant to the National Council on Economic Education for the development of standards in economics.
1995, May: The Joint Committee on National Health Education Standards releases National Health Education Standards: Achieving Health Literacy.
1995, summer: The National Association for Sport and Physical Education publishes Moving Into the Future: National Standards for Physical Education.
1995, Oct: The National Council on Economic Education, using funds from private sources, convenes a drafting committee to develop standards; projected publication is winter 1996.
1995, Nov: The New Standards Project releases a three-volume "consultation draft" entitled Performance Standards for English language arts, mathematics, science, and "applied learning."
1995, Dec: McREL publishes Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education, a synthesis of standards in all subject areas, including behavioral studies and life skills.
1995 The National Business Education Association publishes National Standards for Business Education: What America's Students Should Know and be Able to Do in Business.
1996, Jan: The National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project publishes Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century.
1996, Jan: The National Research Council publishes National Science Education Standards.
1996, March: The National Education Summit is held. Forty state governors and more than 45 business leaders convene. They support efforts to set clear academic standards in the core subject areas at the state and local levels. Business leaders pledge to consider the existence of state standards when locating facilities.
1996, March: The National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association publish Standards for the English Language Arts.
1996, April: Revised history standards are published. A review in the Wall Street Journal by Diane Ravitch and Arthur Schlesinger, professor emeritus at City University of New York, endorses the standards. Lynn Cheney renews her criticism of the history standards, determining that the revision does not go far enough.
1996 The International Technology Education Association, supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, releases a guiding document for the development of standards in technology.
1997, Feb: President Clinton, in his State of the Union Address, calls for every state to adopt high national standards, and declares that "by 1999, every state should test every 4th grader in reading and every 8th grader in math to make sure these standards are met."
1997 EconomicsAmerica releases Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics in paper copy and on CD-ROM.
1997 Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages publishes ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students.
1997 The National Center on Education and the Economy publishes the New Standards' Performance Standards: English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Applied Learning - one volume each for elementary, middle, and high school.
1998 The National Communication Association publishes Competent Communicators: K-12 Speaking, Listening, and Media Literacy Standards and Competency Statements.
1998 The Council for Basic Education publishes Standards For Excellence in Education, which includes standards in science, history, geography, English language arts, mathematics, civics, foreign language, and the arts
1998 The American Library Association publishes Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, which includes nine broadly described information literacy standards.
1999, fall: The National Education Summit is held. Governors, educators, and business leaders identifies three key challenges facing U.S. schools - improving educator quality, helping all students reach high standards, and strengthening accountability - and agrees to specify how each of their states would address these challenges
1999 The National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project republish their standards as Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century, complemented by nine language-specific standards for Chinese, Classical, Languages, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish
2000 The International Technology Association publishes Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology.
2000 The International Society for Technology in Education publishes National Educational Technology Standards for Students: Connecting Curriculum and Technology.
2000 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics publishes Principles and Standards for School Mathematics.

The Case for Standards
Why are standards important? There appear to be three principal reasons advanced for the development of standards: standards serve both to clarify and to raise expectations, and standards provide a common set of expectations.

Former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch is commonly recognized as one of the chief architects of the modern standards movement. In her book National Standards in American Education: A Citizens Guide (1995), Ravitch provides a common-sense rationale for standards:

Americans . . . expect strict standards to govern construction of buildings, bridges, highways, and tunnels; shoddy work would put lives at risk. They expect stringent standards to protect their drinking water, the food they eat, and the air they breathe. . . . Standards are created because they improve the activity of life. (pp. 8-9)
Ravitch (1995) asserts that just as standards improve the daily lives of Americans, so, too, will they improve the effectiveness of American education: "Standards can improve achievement by clearly defining what is to be taught and what kind of performance is expected" (p. 25).

Such a view is apparently shared by many. The polling firm Public Agenda conducted a number of surveys on the issue of standards over the last several years. They found that most Americans strongly support higher standards that are clear and specific (Farkas, Friedman, Boese & Shaw, 1994), believing that higher expectations produce better performance. Teachers, as well, support proposals to raise standards, which they expect to improve their students' academic performance (Johnson & Farkas, 1996). A recent finding indicates that students also see value in standards, saying that higher standards will make them work harder, and they expect to learn more as a result (Friedman & Duffet, 1997).

The Standards Project
Although much effort has been devoted to the development and implementation of standards, no consensus has emerged as to what form "standards" should take or how they should be used. The result is that the character, scope, and level of detail provided in standards often vary significantly from one subject area to another. Some subject-area groups have argued that the disciplines are so inherently different that a common approach to standards is not possible (Viadero, 1993). However, our analysis of standards from a wide range of subject areas confirms that a number of basic techniques can be successfully applied to describe content knowledge regardless of the domain. The application of this process provides content knowledge expressed in a roughly equivalent format across subject areas, which should facilitate communication of and about standards. Clear standards provide clearer expectations for students and the possibility of better communication among teachers, administrators, parents, and the larger community. Without such a common format, even the basics of a school system can break down. Reporting student progress on standards, for example, becomes quickly problematic if one subject area describes standards in terms of a performance vignette, as is the case with work done by the Standards Project for the English language arts, while another subject area describes standards in terms of specific components of information and skills, as is the case with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. When demands on schooling become more complex, as for example when teachers seek to design lesson plans that incorporate standards from more than one discipline, a lack of common language can overburden innovative work.

The purpose of our project is to address the major issues surrounding content standards, provide a model for their identification, and apply this model in order to identify standards and benchmarks in the subject areas. This project has been documented in a series of reports and updates (Marzano & Kendall, 1993; Kendall & Marzano, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997). For this edition, revisions have been made to standards in mathematics, science, the English language arts, foreign language, and technology. The revisions were undertaken to incorporate newly released material in these subject areas and additionally, in the area of science, to reorganize content. The introductory sections and content for the subject areas remain unchanged except for the subject areas just listed.

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