Standards Based Education

            A standards based education  is one where the student is expected to learn a certain, pre-determined knowledge base. Often, the student's progress is tracked by performance standards in the form of frequent standardized testing and is built around preparing the student for the multitude of other standardized tests that will be foisted on them by the teacher, to pass; by the district, for funding; by the school, to graduate; and by the university, to get in. Then the cycle begins over again. The standards set down for the student's education are often lofty and overly-optimistic. The standards may presume that a student arrives in a certain grade completely prepared by previous education to start material and simply absorb it. Teacher pay and bonuses often go on the line as bets against how their class performs on the standardized tests molded to represent the latest set of standards.

            The standards themselves, called “content standards” are usually determined by someone who has not seen the inside of a primary or secondary school for decades. These standards are not even universal! Certain districts with poor grades on standardized tests may lower the standards to meet the students in order feel they are preparing the students better. It is completely possible for a student to excel under the standards at one school, move, and then completely fail to meet the standards of the next school. The difficulty may not be the only thing to change as those who edit the standards decide exactly what content goes in them. Does the content revolve largely around a textbook? Does the school need a new textbook to fit the new standards? Can the school afford new textbooks?

            The changing content for standards based education and individual school districts' ability to keep up with these standards creates a risk of disconnect between what government says the students should be learning and what they actually learn. This disconnect results in changing standards which results in more disconnect and a caterpillar effect in which the governments are constantly trying to do what is best for the student while the student ends up further and further behind the “standard”.

1. Sadker, David Miller. Teachers, Schools, and Society, 2010. Page 151.
2. Image: "Regents? Hey, they’re a breeze". Published August 18, 2010 at 7:12 am by Michael Huber, timesunion.com  Accessed 2012 Nov 27. [http://blog.timesunion.com/schools/regents-hey-they/970/]