Standards Save Public Education - Essay Example

Standards save Public Education Introduction The reform of the educationsystem in the United States of America has greatly been oriented towards setting academic standards which define what students should know and also what teachers should teach in schools. The reform is driven by the Standard based education reform movement which requires that there be standard education curriculum and clear, elaborate and measurable standards for all the students in American schools. Standards are formulated through political deliberations on what is important to be taught in schools and for students to know in order to suit the requirements of the job market. Standards are then made available and accessible to the public and the stakeholders in the education system egteachers, parents and the textbook writers and publishers. Standards are inspired by the need to have a literate and economically competitive human resource in the country and therefore outline the important things that the students should know and understand and be able to execute perfectly. They are formulated in a way that they are appropriate in growth and development as well as relevant to future education and employment needs(McInerney, Etten, & Dowson, 2007). Standards are set in a manner that all students are able to attain them with ease and the excellent students exceed them ensuring that no student is left behind. Though students, both fast and slow learners can learn new things in their own ways the instructions that help an individual student attain the set standards is emphasized. Standardisation ensures that both excellence and equity are upheld where systemic bias, discrimination and tyranny of low expectation are greatly reduced. Standardization also empowers the teachers to make decisions that ensure effective learning while highly discouraging social promotion of students as opposed to promotion based on their academic achievement. Reasons for standards in education Education standards ensure that teachers and schools are held accountable of teaching students what they should know in school. Teachers and the school therefore have a social responsibility to ensure that all students gain what they are supposed to gain in school and pass the standardised examination. Poor performance leads to disciplinary actions against the teachers and schools which may involve salary deductions or loss of job. If a school repeatedly exhibits poor results, it is taken over by the government or it can even be closed down. This ensures that no student id left behind or drops out of school due to low motivation or absolute loss of hope in education. Education standards in the united state provide an avenue where students from different schools, districts or even states are compared which would otherwise be impossible without standardisation. Students from the same state e.g. California are expected to do the same standardised exam which allow comparison of students’performance. Education standards are very important because people do move around nowadays and without standard education curriculum, it would be very challenging for students moving from one school to another. Many students would probably end up dropping out of school due to discontinuation or interruptions after transfers from one school to another. Education standards provide teachers with a standard framework of instructions which guide them on what and when to teach thus creating some uniformity and organisation in schools(National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessmentet al, 1995). Without the standard instruction framework for schools, maybe a teacher in fourth grade and a teacher in fifth grade would be teaching the same thing which would create confusion in the education sector. This also ensures that students who change school from other districts don’t have difficulties adapting to teaching in their new schools. Standardized tests are usually objective in nature in that the scores are awarded by computers or by individuals who do not directly know the student to avoid systemic bias. Reduced subjectivity of the tests ensures that bias and the tyranny of low expectation are highly minimised and also each question is also critically reviewed by experts to ensure that it has no bias. Before the introduction of the education standards, the tyranny of low expectation was areal thing and examiners would award scores to students not purely based on their performance but also on the knowledge of their expectation. Standardised tests also enable an accurate comparison between sub groups which may include socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity or special needs. This allows the schools to arrange for and develop programmes to improve the performance of such sub groups. In this way standardisation ensures that all Americans get equal education opportunities without any discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status etc.This helps reduce the inequality that existed in the American public education system where the children of the poor and minority did not get quality education. It has enabled students and schools to surpass the income and educational limitations and constraints that would otherwise be an impediment to quality education(McInerney, Etten, & Dowson, 2007). Education standards to a very great extent have worked to raise and maintain the quality of education offered in American schools. This ensures that a high school graduate can join the job market comfortably and execute necessary duties and requirements in the job market. It has also ensured that the students who join college from high school are able to comfortably do college level work without any remedial teaching. Education standards have also saved the local schools from retrogression that would arise from biased local control. Some onsite administrations, in religious groups controlled schools for instance, would want to remove evolution in the teaching curriculum or simply term it as heretical.(National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment et al, 1995) Such retrogressive local control would highly degrade the education standards in American schools. Unintended consequences of standardisation Standardized tests make teachers to teach students how to pass the test as opposed to imparting the necessary knowledge and skill on the student. With very high stakes for teachers, they are forced to teach tests to the students just to get them ready for the test which greatly affects the overall learning potential of the students. Standards create an environment that exemplifies lack of creativity and innovation. Standards also make students to view teachers as tools to implement set standards as opposed to seeing them as mentors in creativity and being responsible members of the society (Meier, Cohen, & Rogers, 2000). Standardized test evaluate the performance of the student only on one day which may be greatly affected by other external factors and may not necessarily reflect the true potential of the student. It also tests on the individual performance without putting into consideration the general growth of that student over the course of the year. It only focuses on evaluating whether the student is proficient at the time of the test but fails to put into consideration the growth and the improvement of the students or school. Standardised tests create a lot of stress and undue pressure both on the educators and the students. This has made many professional teachers to quite the profession because of the pressure and stress they have to prepare students for standardised tests(Meier, Cohen, & Rogers, 2000). The system is more stressing to the students as they have to pass the standardised test toearn their diplomas or advance to the next level no matter the circumstances surrounding the examination period. Education standards are set in political deliberations and they are sometimes used by unscrupulous and selfish politicians to further their own political interests. This is sometimes very unfortunate as standardised tests scores are often used as issues by politicians to achieve political intimacy. This can be very detrimental on educational professionalism and the education standards Conclusion Education standards have to a very great extent helped raise and in some instances maintain quality education standards in America. Education standards are in the interest of equity and excellence in the American education system for all students while ensuring relevance to economic and educational needs in future. They also facilitate comparison and close monitoring of education in the various states of the USA. It is evident that education standards have a lot of benefit to the public education but it is also intuitive that there is no excellent pedagogy and standardisation has its share of negative consequences which can be contained any way References McInerney, D. M., Etten, S. V., & Dowson, M. (2007).Standards in Education. New York: Infotmation Age Publishing Inc. Meier, D., Cohen, J., & Rogers, J. (2000). Will standards save public education? Boston: Beacon Press. National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment, Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council.(1995). National Science Education Standards. New York: National Academic Press. Read More