Walking Our Talk about Standards

Abstract

ARE WE really serious about standards? Do we really want to hold students accountable for achieving standards? Do we want to hold ourselves accountable for student achievement of standards? What does the term standards-based really mean as it describes curriculum, instruction, assessment, and other pursuits in our classrooms? Although districts and schools say they are standards-based, most still promote and graduate students according to the concept of passing. In elementary and middle schools, passing usually means getting a grade of D or better in the various subjects required at a grade level. Students who do not pass a sufficient number of subjects are sometimes retained in grade (despite what we know about the strong relationship between retention and dropping out). In high schools, when--finally--achievement counts for graduation, students must earn a requisite number of credits to graduate. They do this by taking classes, required and elective, and achieving a D or better in each class. When they have accumulated enough credits (22 to 24 in most states), they can graduate, usually in four years. From kindergarten through grade 12, the foundation of this practice is a combination of time and minimum quality, what is known as seat time. Students must be enrolled for a certain number of days (180, for example) and achieve a rating of at least 60% out of 100% for the quality of their work. In this way, they pass enough subjects to be promoted from one grade to the next or accrue enough credits to graduate from high school. This practice (usually based on state policy) means that students may do just enough to get by. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] What if we really meant it about standards? What would a true standards-based system look like? What changes would we be willing to make to support student achievement of standards? A REAL STANDARDS-BASED SYSTEM At a purposefully experimental high school, Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center in Estes Park, Colorado, students graduate when they can document mastery of our requirements, which are related to the Colorado State Model Content Standards. They are related to, rather than based on, the Colorado standards because Eagle Rock started with its own standards and then made sure the Colorado standards were incorporated into them. In designing our program, we were so serious about having students master our standards that we decided not to use classes as our unit of credit, as is done in most high schools. Our unit of credit is the standard itself. Classes are just vehicles for learning and demonstrating mastery of a variety of standards. Classes do not count (as subjects would not count if we were an elementary school). This concept enables us to invent highly engaging classes for students, such as Blood and Guts or Civil?izations or Memoirs. Classes do not appear on our transcripts--just the standards that students are expected to master and an indication that they have mastered them. Learning Experience Record Sheets in each student's portfolio provide the proof of mastery. We also are able to construct interdisciplinary classes since students can work toward mastery of standards in any number of disciplines in the same class. Take the class called Renaissance, for example. Students worked on learning and demonstrating mastery of our standards in world history, writing, and the arts through this one exciting class. Letter grades don't exist at Eagle Rock. Students work until they have demonstrated mastery (which we call proficiency). If they do not achieve mastery through one class, they take another, very different class that offers them similar credit opportunities. The next class may be just right for them--appealing to their interests and favoring their learning styles. Thus there is no failure at Eagle Rock; students who do not achieve mastery on their first attempt haven't failed to achieve mastery, they just haven't achieved it yet. …