Standards Based Education

[proud2BlibKansan]

What do you know about it? My district is starting a pilot program in the fall.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Here's a newspaper article about it

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/08/1933391/kc-schools-will-attempt-a-new.html

[LWolf]

4. I've seen a little of what appears in the article, as well.

It's basically individualized education; differentiation that goes beyond the regular classroom, and includes flexible grouping for instruction across classrooms and grade levels.

In my k-8 school, they call it "walk to read," and "walk to math." It's new, and they are all excited about it. Excited enough that they don't hear me when I speak up about my experience, in the 90s, with leveled elementary groups.

I worked for a school that did something similar; it was a multi-age school, before the standards and accountability movement locked us into grade-level grouping that focused only on grade-level standards. We leveled kids by ability, not age or grade, and moved them during the day for math and reading according to those groups.

After 5 years, we quit doing that. Why? Because it didn't serve our lowest students. Our average, above average, and gifted students thrived. Our lowest students didn't. It turned out that heterogeneously grouping them brought them farther than ability groups.

The same with mastery learning, which is making a new, revised, upgraded appearance as "proficiency learning." Too much focus on one area, while deferring other things until "later" resulted in "later" becoming "never."

Personally, I'm fine with alternate grading systems. I've used some really good ones, and I've never liked the A/B/C format. There are things in "standards based education" that can be good; it can get teachers to really focus on what units of study are accomplishing, for example. Making sure that actual standards are embedded into a thematic unit, or any unit, is a good thing.

It can also be misused and abused. I'm cautious about embracing any "reform" without critically evaluating it's pros and cons, and keeping that evaluation to the forefront when discussing, doing staff development, or implementing it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Interesting

As a special ed teacher, I know that what is best for my kids is to be mainstreamed with their same age peers as much as possible. So I appreciate your experience.

Thank you.

[LWolf]

6. The key is to get people to make the connection.

It works the same for other low performing students as it does for sped; they need to work with higher-performing peers. Isolating them into ability groups for core instruction in reading and math holds them back.

[Reader Rabbit]

7. Our district is implementing proficiency learning, as well.

The idea seems to work for math, which is very linear and skill-dominant. It's a lot tougher for Humanities, however, where there are upwards of 30 "learning targets" for which teachers are expected to provide explicit lessons and assessments. One of the SPED teachers described it as an IEP for every single student—and at our school, that's a "caseload" of 80–100 IEP's for every teacher.

There's a lot of controversy. I think if economic times were better, a lot of teachers would try to leave the district.

[SheilaT]

2. In very general terms

I think it's a good idea. What will matter in the end is exactly how it is implemented.

All schooling ought to be in some way standards based. Maybe the term isn't used that way, but the AP classes certainly are. I know you teach well below high school (some elementary grade, right?) and so AP's simply don't matter where you are.

And I know that good teachers do hold their kids to standards.

[LWolf]

3. It's a phrase that's used to justify a lot of policies.

I know the phrase is used constantly in my state. I don't know if there is a guidebook, lol. Generally, it's about focusing all your efforts on attaining proficiency in state standards. There are many ways to do that, of course.

Currently, my district is focused on:

1. A standards-based report card. Instead of subjects and grades, it will list standards which will be scored with a rubric; something like what the state uses for meeting state benchmarks: "Does not meet," "nearly meets," "meets," "exceeds."

2. Proficiency learning: a student is not done until proficiency on the standards for that term have been mastered. This is eerily familiar to me, having experienced a district's experiments with "mastery learning" in the 80s.

These are reforms coming down the pipe; they've been piloted by a group of middle and high school teachers.