Why We Need a National Standardized Curriculum

While most of us imagine that the federal government is not necessarily in a position to dictate what states do in their schools, the fact is the federal government can very much impose its will on state and local governments.

The impetus is, naturally, monetary. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is a case in point. States not adhering to the mandates of NCLB risk losing their federal Title I funds. As a result, states have endeavored to implement NCLB mandates, which were unparalleled in scope in terms of federal imposition into state educational practices.

The Obama Administration is maintaining a primary premise of NCLB—that of closing the achievement gap between disadvantaged and advantaged students, while increasing overall standards of performance for all students. In support of this goal, the Administration has voiced strong support for the Common Core State Standards, a consistent set of curriculum standards in mathematics and English language arts, by encouraging states to adopt the standards. The Administration through award of Race-to-the Top funds also supports the work of the 31-member state SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), which is working to develop student assessments, aligned with the Common Core State Standards.

While there may be a question as to whether or not the federal government has the authority to mandate adoption of what is tantamount to national standards (and subsequently adoption of common assessments for the those standards), to date, 43 states have adopted the standards on their own. The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) created the standards. Their goal was to create a set of standards that described what children needed to know and be able to do, regardless of where in the nation they lived. The standards are meant to be robust and to provide all students with the knowledge and skills needed to prepare them for college or the workforce. The standards are consistent with President Obama’s advocacy for equality as a foundation of his education agenda. He has stated on numerous occasions that he wants results, and to see expectations rise so that the United States is on equal footing in a competitive global economy.

The level of inconsistency prior to development of the Common Core State Standards was a hurdle many students needed to navigate. Students moving from state-to-state potentially faced jarring inconsistencies between states with respect to expected performance to reach proficiency, and in some instances differences in content being tested. Common Core State Standards proponents claimed differences in state standards and what it meant to be proficient made it impossible to determine the extent to which national achievement goals were being accomplished.

Even so, the national standards movement has it critics. For some, having nationwide standards focused on mathematics and language arts places the broad variety of learning experiences and critical thinking so valuable in high quality education in jeopardy. Others are concerned that the standards are not rigorous enough, and are actually weaker than state standards that were in place. This was particularly the case in New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts. Still others are concerned that local autonomy will once again be taken away as states are forced to adopt standards favored by the federal government.

While states like Massachusetts may be venerated for their stringent policies and implementation of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, that level of stringency did not necessarily carry over to other states. In fact, many states were not nearly as rigorous in assessment a procedure, preferring to do only what was required to ensure that they received federal education funds, and nothing more. And to date, no federal requirement to adopt the standards has been imposed, although adoption of the standards was required by states competing for Race-to-the Top funds.

A number of states have yet to adopt the standards—which brings us to the subject of sanctions. There are questions about whether sanction models such as that native to NCLB really work. With so much pressure mounted toward schools, administrators, teachers, and students, it is important to ascertain whether sanctions are the best way to persuade schools to engage specific types of educational reforms. After examining the sanctions issue from various sides, it is apparent that the current penalty model does not convincingly provide a clear route to improved overall performance of schools systems throughout the country. In fact, if there were even a reasonable correlation between improved school performance and imposed sanctions, there would be a strong case for continuing with that system and trying to improve it. However data are too ambiguous to create confidence in the sanctions model as an impetus for change.

In short, mandatory sanctions do not allow enough flexibility to achieve an overall improvement in education. If sanctions were actually functioning as expected, many substandard schools would be moving out of their troubled status–however the Center for Education Policy finds that this has not occurred. Further, testing can lend itself to a focus on a narrow spectrum of knowledge items that can be easily assessed. These tests may not address the crucial analyzing and reasoning skills that are critical in the real world or at the college level. This may be the preferred route for states more interested in avoiding sanctions than challenging students with rigorous standards-based content.

National standards negate both of these failures. Discrepancies in content and levels of proficiency in different parts of the country would be minimized if not eradicated by having a set of common standards that are assessed across the nation, Problems associated with students’ movement from one location to another would be resolved, and the high-pressure testing atmosphere that currently exists under NCLB would be alleviated. Consequently, the punitive sanctioning suggested by NCLB becomes obsolete.



Matthew Lynch is an Assistant professor of Education at Widener University. He can be contacted at mlynch@mail.widener.edu.

Class 12 April 13, 2011- Special Visitor Emily Schroeder

Today, we had a special guest attend class. Ms. Emily Schroeder is an project based high school engineering teacher from Austin, TX. She spoke about issues related around curriculum, classroom management, assessment, and content specific instruction.

This was also the date to hand in final "field experience" reports. The rest of the class meetings will focus largely on the development of the Legacy Cycles as the end of semester project.

Day 11 3/28 Hmelo et. al. Reply to Kirschner/Kirschner

Class 10 3/30- Sweller Reply/Field Experience

In today's class we reviewed and choose one of four different field experience options for the PBI course this semester. We also read and had a 30 minute discussion on the Sweller reply to the number of commentaries on Krishner's original piece on minimally guided instruction.

Sweller Kirschner Clark Reply Ep07

Class 9: 2/16- McKinny Falls/Krajcik and Blumenfeld/

Today Prudie Cain, our UTeach master teacher, started off class by reminding students about a field opportunity this weekend. Students have the option of attending a field trip to McKinney Falls to talk about how lessons can be planned around this site that meet state standards in a number of subjects and integrate technology tools available to them from UTeach.

Students were also reminded that they should be beginning observations out at Manor New Tech High School. They must complete one observation with an associated observation reflection, but they are encouraged to make multiple trips out to the school to see different classes on different days.

The majority of the class time today was used to discuss the Krajcik and Blumenfeld reading. Students compared and contrasted the essential elements of PBI as presented in Barron et al (1998) and Krajcik and Blumenfeld (2004). One of the elements students felt was missing from Krajcik’s paper was that of frequent assessment and feedback with opportunities for revision that Barron stresses. Students also had a thoughtful discussion of whether the process of creating an artifact truly requires students to “reconstruct” their understanding or simply requires them to externalize their knowledge. Another topic that generated lengthy discussion was that of so-called “cookbook labs” and whether they have utility in a science classroom.

Class 8: 2/14- Surprise quiz/More Jasper/TEKS Mapping

Class began today with a quiz over recent readings about the essential elements of Project-based instruction.

After the quiz was completed, Dr. Petrosino showed a video documenting teachers and students solving the Jasper “Rescue at Boone’s Meadow” problem that we had looked at last week. He also introduced the idea of analog problems that are different versions or extensions of the original problem. Surface level analogs address a different aspect of the same scenario, and the class viewed the fuel consumption, capacity and consumption, and headwinds and tailwinds analogs of the original problem. Conceptual analogs cover the same content within a different scenario, such as the Lindbergh question analog for the Jasper problem.

The class then discussed the Jasper problem. One student was critical of the data acquisition process (collecting information from a video), but others felt that it was engaging, allowed for interaction with technology, mirrored real world problems, and allowed for teaching about functions and variables if students lacked information.

The class felt that the middle school classroom in this video was less teacher-focused than the average classroom, and they saw less lecture and fewer worksheets than they would have expected. Dr. Petrosino pointed out that the format of the problem and the class allowed for greater participation by students who were perhaps less skilled at reading. The class wondered about whether older students would be as engaged in doing problems like this, though they acknowledged it was a good alternative to lecture, and felt that grouping would be especially important with secondary students.

Dr. Petrosino told the class that kids who had a year of math curriculum that was primarily focused on Jasper problems reported not having had a math class that year even though assessments showed significant math gains. This classroom was so fundamentally different from their conception of what a math class is that they did not recognize it as such.

The contextualization that is exemplified by the Jasper problems is based in cognitive psychology. Novices in any subject have trouble distinguishing important from trivial information. The essential question we are asking is can we go from a complex problem and work backwards into the basic facts, or do we have to go from basics to complexity?

Dr. Petrosino ended class by talking briefly through the Jasper problem planning net and a mapping of TEKS to the problem.

Class 7: 2/9- Barron et al (1995)/Jasper/"Big P-little p"

We began class today with a discussion of Barron et al (1998). In this paper, four critical aspects of project-based instruction are identified:

-Learning appropriate goals

-Scaffolds for learning

-Frequent feedback and revision

-Social structures that support participatory practices

Students had some questions about the distinction between the problem-based learning identified by Barron as a scaffolding tool and project-based learning. Some of the differences identified were the scale, purpose, and timing.

Dr. Petrosino asked the students to list some of the characteristics that are generally associated with the common usage of the word “project.” Students listed: build something, beginning middle end, using hands, extended time period, takes creativity, research. He contrasted these to the attributes that Barron et al provide, and introduced students to the terms “little p project” and “Big P Project.”

Little p projects are activities that lack the proper pedagogy and scaffolding to facilitate real learning, but may look on face as though they are projects. Big P Projects are founded in solid pedagogy and are more effective for student learning. Dr. Petrosino noted that because PBI is becoming fashionable in education, there is a lot of little p going on in schools.

For the rest of class, students were put in groups of three to work on the “Rescue at Boone’s Meadow” Jasper problem. This problem begins with a video that introduces a scenario in which students must optimize travel time to a location and back given the constraints that are presented throughout the video.

Class 6: 2/7

Class 5: 2/2- Eratosthenes and the Circumference of the Earth Problem

Dr. Petrosino began class today by giving students approximately 15 minutes to work on a circumference of the earth problem. Approximately half of the class worked in pairs, while the other half worked alone. After time was up, some students shared their work with the class. Many groups approached this problem in the same way, though at least two individuals who worked alone became stuck quickly and were unable to get very far. Another individual observed that she was very engaged at first, but when she realized she was going to get stuck because she had no calculator, her attention wandered.

He asked the students to recall the ten-question quiz they took at the end of the previous class period, and showed them the results. The students did quite well on this quiz, which covered most of the necessary facts they needed to know to solve the circumference problem. A student observed that the hardest part of a problem is the initial deconstruction and planning; when the problem is already broken down into components (as on the quiz) it is easy to supply the information from memory. In other words, it was not the skills that were the problem, but rather when to use those skills.

Dr. Petrosino made the argument that the quiz from Monday was “TAKS-like” in that it mimicked the form and question type of a typical standardized test. It indicated that the students have high algorithmic and factual knowledge. The circumference problem students were given today, however, was something else.

This country is very good at factual knowledge like the quiz; we are good at worksheets and studying facts for a test. Instructionally, teaching factual knowledge is easy and can be done by computer programs, individuals with no training, or anyone who possesses the right series of facts. Teaching factual knowledge doesn’t require insight into cognition, assessment, reasoning, innovation, or creativity.

The back-of-the-envelope problems from Monday and the circumference problems today require more conceptual knowledge and transfer, which is what students typically are not getting in a classroom focused on standardized test performance.

Dr. Petrosino posed the question to the students, “How is it that we are hindered when we think about a problem that someone solved thousands of years ago?” and encouraged the students to think how they want to teach: as they were taught, with high emphasis on facts, or do they want to integrate complexity and creativity?

He added that they should look back at their own education appreciatively and critically and think about the kind of teaching they want to do. How do you move our instruction from being factually based to being conceptual and transfer based?

Sara finished class today by walking students through a sample rubric that would build a rubric around the Eratosthenes problem in order to create a mathematics unit. Students found the idea interesting, but were constrained by the idea that math must be taught in sequence (e.g., algebra, geometry, algebra II, etc).

Class 4: 1/31- Back of the Envelope/Students with Disabilities/Math Quiz

Today Dr. Petrosino began class by showing a video from CBS Sunday Morning called “Finding their voices: Overcoming Stuttering.” This video depicted youth with stutters and how they were working to become more comfortable with themselves. Afterward, he discussed with the class that as teachers, we do need to think about these kinds of issues that students may have. Typically, when a student has some sort of challenge or disability, there are two options: special education or mainstreaming. Many students who need more attention to help with their needs do not get it, and as teachers we need to be sympathetic to their challenges in the classroom. It is important for UTeach students to recognize that beyond any kind of moral or ethical responsibility they feel toward meeting the needs of individual students, they also have a legal responsibility to carry out accommodations provided by the district as best they can.

There is a lot of talk about differentiated instruction as a tool to meet the individual needs of students ranging from special education to gifted and talented. Some of the talk about differentiation is based on the pseudo-science of multiple intelligences and it does not have a great basis in science, but the idea is worth discussion so long as we avoid the popular press depictions.

Differentiation is based in the fantasy that we can make accommodations for all students, and that a teacher can orchestrate this type of classroom where all students are learning in an ideal modality. This places a large responsibility on the teacher. Many teachers approach gifted education in one of two ways- either giving the students more work, or giving them work of the next grade level. Many of the things we will talk about in PBI have been shown to have great efficacy in a gifted classroom and are not debated as strategies for advanced students, but the issue of whether or not it can be done with “normal” students is a hot-button issue.

Dr. Petrosino noted that it is in some ways difficult to help successful university students learn to be good teachers because to a large degree school was easy for them. Even if it wasn’t easy, UTeach students have likely bought into the idea that education is the route to success. This is fine when teachers have students like themselves, but most teachers will also be teaching students who for whatever reason have not been encouraged and welcomed by education, and who harbor negative feelings about school. It is difficult to deal with that tension when you are not from that background.

Today we also did two activities. First, we did “back of the envelope” problems (also called Fermi Questions) that require students to perform quick calculations based on rough estimates to answer a question. The class was split into three groups, and each group had a different question: How many golf balls fit into a school bus? How many years would it take for McDonalds to sell a mole of their hamburgers? How many miles of roads are in the US? The groups struggled initially with their inability to use any resources, but ultimately each group arrived at a reasonable answer and presented it to the class.

Dr. Petrosino discussed afterwards that these kind of questions call upon many different strategies on the part of the student, and could be very frustrating if done on one’s own. The students observed that these types of questions could be very illustrative of critical thinking skills, but would not make good standardized test questions. Dr. Petrosino shared with them that Bill Gates asked these types of questions to potential employees when staffing Microsoft, and raised the idea of what true 21^st century skills are. There is a great deal of rhetoric about teaching these skills in schools, but these are not the types of things we are assessing. There is an inconsistency between the rhetoric of 21^st century education and the reality of the classroom.

Before leaving, the students took a short ten question quiz over basic mathematical and astronomical facts, the results of which will be used in the next class meeting.

Class 3: 1/26

Class 2: 1/24- Defining Project Based Instruction

Sara began class by having the students introducing themselves briefly, giving their name, major, why they want to teach, how likely they think it is that they will teach, and some other interesting fact about them. Most students reported that they are very likely to teach, though some are still uncertain as to when they will be in the classroom.

Next, she asked the class how they would define Project-based Instruction, and many students found they had a hard time articulating what exactly is meant by this and how it is distinct from a classroom where the teacher assigns projects. Through some discussion and with help from Sara, the class decided that PBI is when all the content that is to be transmitted for a project or unit is embedded inside a contextualized problem or scenario that students must solve. The class then brainstormed potential pros and cons of teaching with PBI, drawing from their own experience, things they have read or heard about PBI, and some critical thinking. Students felt that some of the positive aspects of PBI might be that it affords creativity for students, students may be more engaged, it brings in real world questions, and that it caters to different learning styles. They brought up concerns about planning time, TAKS performance, and difficulty developing projects as potential disadvantages to PBI. At the end of this discussion, Sara urged them to keep these pros and cons in mind as they do the reading and move through the course in order to see if some of their ideas are confirmed or refuted by the literature.

The class briefly discussed the field experience, and Sara gave some of her impressions about previous semesters and what students have gotten out of the interactions with high school students.

Sara also briefly mentioned the Legacy Cycle project that PBI students will complete at the end of the semester, and directed students to www.edb.utexas.edu/visionawards/petrosino to look at examples of Legacy Cycle projects and get an overview of what they will be asked to do.