Topic: Standards

10-second review: Defines three different types of standards.

Title: “Raising the Standards for Standards: A Call for Definitions.” PK Ericsson. English Education (April 2005), 223-243. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: When we read “standards,” in education, we need to ask, “which standards?”

Content standards: What students should know and be able to do in a given discipline.

Performance standards: Quality of student performance at various levels of competency.

Opportunity-to-learn standards: Conditions necessary to achieve content or performance standards, learning environment, equity, etc.

To what degree do present-day standards include all three types of standards?

Comment: Interesting to think about. Might clarify the validity of present-day standards. These definitions came from the NCTE and IRA standards for reading and language arts, standards that were criticized in the New York Times when first presented. They are, in my opinion, poorly expressed according to their own definitions of standards.