So What's This About Standards?
If you have been following education reform or even just reading the newspaper or listening to the news, you have inevitably heard of the standards movement in education, and you, like many others, are probably wondering what this is all about.

Standards are nothing more than statements describing what students should know and be able to do at the end of a course of study, and they are indeed nothing new. Good teachers have always had a clear idea of where they would like students to end up intellectually after completing their classes and thus, have always based their instruction on a set of goals or standards. What is new is the effort to normalize a consistent and coherent set of standards system-wide across the entire state and at every level from kindergarten to high school in order to ensure that all students will receive equal access to the same high quality education.

A vital first step in the creation of schools that are capable of preparing students to be competitive in the global marketplace of the twenty-first century, the development and implementation of standards in education is a necessary but not sufficient condition to ensure world class schools. Standards alone will not make our educational system great: Standards enfleshed with quality instruction, rigorous assessments, and familial and community support, however, will.

Standards Development
An enterprise as ambitious as standardizing instruction across the state of Hawaii is bound to elicit much debate and controversy, with the development of mathematics standards being no exception. While by its structured and sequential nature, the mathematics curriculum in the United States has already become fairly “standardized”, there is still no consensus on such things as the level of specificity, amount of detail, breadth, and depth of the standards governing mathematics instruction.

First taken up at the national level by our professional organization—the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)—the development of a country-wide set of mathematics standards is already in its second revision with the publication of Principles and Standards for School Mathematics in 2000.

Taking its cue from the NCTM, the Hawaii Department of Education has developed its own comparable (though not entirely equivalent) set of standards for teachers in Hawaii—the Hawaii Content Performance Standards (HCPS)—that is currently in its third revision.

Both of these documents are living documents, subject to improvement and refinement as they are debated, discussed, and field tested by the professional community of mathematics teachers.

The Nuts and Bolts of Standards and Benchmarks
Like the members of any subculture, teachers and administrators have developed their own jargon when it comes to standards, and while one might expect more from teachers, this professional argot is often bewildering to the layperson. What we call “standards” are actually very broad and general (even philosophical) statements of what we would like students to get out of our classes. They are, by design, unspecific enough to be applicable to students at any grade level. One of the NCTM algebra standards, for example, states that students should be able to:

Use mathematical models to represent and understand quantitative relationships.

Notice that there are no specific skills or problem types referred to, with no variables or equations in sight. The specific grade-level skills that students should be able to do in order to demonstrate competence in the standards are referred to as “benchmarks” or “expectations”, and are subsidiary to the standards. Each standard will likely have several benchmarks arranged by grade level or grade level “clusters”. Benchmarks are the criteria by which teachers measure students' levels of proficiency in each standard. Where standards are general and even vague, benchmarks are precise and pinpoint fairly specific competencies to be exhibited. One of the skills that will show achievement of the NCTM algebra standard mentioned above for students in grades K–2, for example, is the ability to:

model situations that involve the addition and subtraction of whole numbers, using objects, pictures, and symbols.

Entirely age-appropriate for a first-grader, but a junior in high school should be expected to do more; and indeed one of the benchmarks for the same standard but for students in grades 9–12 is the ability to:

use symbolic expressions, including iterative and recursive forms, to represent relationships arising from various contexts.

While worlds apart in sophistication and specific content, both benchmarks point to the same standard as a unifying thread throughout a student's education.

In order to assist teachers in their assessment of a student's attainment of each benchmark, a variety of scoring rubrics have been developed. Most scoring rubrics are nothing more than grids correlating aspects of a student's work with specific levels of achievement (e.g., Exceeds Standard, Meets Standard, Approaches Standard, Does Not Yet Meet Standard), and help to ensure that teachers will score student work as objectively, efficiently, and consistently as possible.

What About Grades?
For all their specificity, benchmarks still do leave some room for subjectivity. While the traditional point and percentage system that many of us are more familiar and comfortable with does have some advantages, it is important to remember that standards-based grading tends to give a more coherent picture of a student's progress. Neither system is perfect, however, and the adoption of either one exclusive of the other leads only to mediocrity. As with most things in life, the ideal solution is likely to be found along the via media, the middle way between the two extremes, combining the best features of each into a more robust and holistic assessment reporting system. The standards-based report card being phased in by the Department of Education will hopefully be a first step in that direction.

So What About GLOs?
A quality education should be focused on not just facts and figures, but the development of the whole individual. The heart as well as the mind requires education and training, and handing on the cultural norms and expectations of the society is arguably as important a function of schools as is teaching algebra and geometry. Because characteristics such as work ethic and perseverance are difficult to quantify, however, a series of General Learner Outcomes (GLOs) has been developed at the state level to assist teachers in evaluating students on such intangibles. GLOs are to behavior what standards are to academic achievement, and they have their own corresponding sets of benchmarks and rubrics. Reported on the upcoming standards-based report cards, each student's attainment of the GLOs will help to provide a more well-rounded and complete picture.

What's Next?
Definitely a work in progress, the implementation of standards-based education in the state of Hawaii is an important step in creating a system of public education worthy of our country and our community. It is important to remember, however, that it is only one piece of the puzzle, and its true impact will not be felt until after the passage of a generation or more of sustained effort and consistent support. The future of our children demands nothing less.

 

Dr. Michael P. Ida
Kalani High School
4680 Kalanianaole Hwy.
Honolulu, HI 96821
(808) 377-7744

Hawaii Public Schools

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