“Our work must focus on developing higher, clearer, and fewer standards that will provide our nation’s students with the skill sets to be functioning members in a global market place.”

Like many standards proponents, Mr. James believes that standards provide students with skills. Clearly, they do not. First of all, there has to be a teacher in there somewhere to do the teaching. This is how the skills are imparted. Second, the success of that imparting is measured by a test and if we repeat the procedures of the past, we will create tests that are relatively easy for our kid to pass and that do not cover the standards very thoroughly.

And again we will know little about how our kids are doing in school.

As excited as national standards folks might be, their enthusiasm is likely to dampen, and their frustration likely to grow, if they ever get to the point of venturing back into classrooms where those standards are in play. Getting a little chalk on your hands is a great way to find out how well things like national standards really work on a day by day basis. I suspect, however, that folks like Mr. James and his compadres will never do this.

When I worked in the software business, we had an expression: “Everybody eats their own dog food.” That simply meant that programmers were required to use the software they created and to fix their own mistakes. I don’t suppose the national standards folks will step up to that standard of personal accountability.

People who like standards like things to be the same. So national standards just seem like a bigger attraction than state standards because they provide more sameness. But are they likely to be any more successful?

This is where I have to ask a very reasonable question: Aren’t we supposed to be using research to figure out what’s best for kids? What is the research base in the US on national standards? Given that we’ve never had them, I suspect the research base is thin to say the least.

So, will national standards be rolled out en masse? Or will they be judiciously piloted and tested against appropriately devised control groups in replicated studies across the country over several years? Surely standards folks aren’t anti-research. But I never see them doing the hard work of actually validating their efforts scientifically in a responsible way.

The only problem I have with standards is that I haven’t seen good results using them in the field. I see them used as tools of teacher control (and for this they’re only modestly effective at best) and I see them used as tools to base tests on (results not good here at all so far).

And yet, we remain so enamored of standardizing education that we’re ready to move to the national level. What is the magical mystical appeal of standards? Just take one more look at Mr. James quote:

“Our work must focus on developing higher, clearer, and fewer standards that will provide our nation’s students with the skill sets to be functioning members in a global market place.”

There’s a subtle myth in the making here that standards – and not people – cause learning to happen. All we have to do is get the right standards and the right tests and things will be right all across the land. But obviously that isn’t true. Until we decide to address the much messier matter of teaching, little progress will be made.

Tell me again how California’s and Massachusetts’ standards fall short.