Education Week author Marc Tucker describes what NCEE has learned about the design of the instructional systems used by top-performing countries and suggest ways in which U.S. states can adapt those lessons for use in their own state system under the Every Student Succeeds Act. He defines “instructional system” as a system that combines standards for student achievement with curriculum frameworks, course syllabi, and examinations to shape what students are expected to learn and that provides the support needed for students to learn it.
The story begins with the standards themselves. “Standards” in top-performing systems combine three elements: first, narrative statements about the content that students are expected to learn, the sort of statements you will find in the Common Core State Standards; second, examples of student work that meet those standards accompanied by commentary on that work showing in detail why the work meets the standard; and third, performance levels, which are usually represented by cut scores or pass points on examinations. Internationally, these exams include mainly performance tasks and short-and-long essay-type responses, based on courses set by the state and tied to the standards.
The same written standard can mean very different things to different teachers. This means that two teachers looking at the same standard can set very different expectations for different students. Big differences in expectations account for much of the difference in student performance in the United States. But when the standards are accompanied by examples of work that meets the standards and commentaries explaining why the standard has (or has not) been met, the ambiguity virtually disappears and the expectations for different students converge. Nothing could be more important, both for equity and for high achievement.
Most top-performing countries go way beyond subject standards to specify analytical, synthesis, problem solving, and collaborative skills needed to organize one’s work and get it done, and other non-cognitive skills, abilities, values and dispositions that are required in the modern workplace and modern life. One of the best descriptions the author has seen of what it might now mean to be an educated person is provided by Charles Fadel and his colleagues in their paper entitled “Four-Dimensional Education-The Competencies Learners Need To Succeed”.
The author proposes several changes to the United States System such as: a curriculum framework that specifies the sequence in which the topics in the subject will be taught, usually grade span by grade span; a set of core courses required of all students in secondary schools, to be completed by the time those students are 16 years old; common course syllabi for all teachers of the subjects in the common core curriculum (not the same lesson sequences, but essential knowledge to be covered in a set time); and performance-based exams that are essay-based and are then summarily released after they are administered so that educators and the general public can clearly understand what is required for student proficiency.
Tucker concludes, “This is what the top performers do. State policymakers now have the opportunity and authority to do likewise if they want to increase student achievement with equity.”
For more information, see http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/top_performers/2016/02/building_a_powerful_state_instructional_system_for_all_students.html
