The President's education bill -- Goals 2000 -- is an essential piece of legislation for turning our schools around. Unfortunately, there is a struggle now going on in Congress that could seriously compromise its value.
The law would set up the National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC) to certify standards and assessments developed by states and/or professional organizations like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The standards would be descriptions of what students should know and be able to do at different ages or grade levels. The assessments would be tests or other assessment techniques designed to measure whether or not the new standards have been met. The bill says that, eventually, these assessments could be used to help make various decisions about students: whether they are required to go to summer school to catch up; whether they are promoted from one grade to another, graduate from high school, qualify for a four-year or a two-year college, enter an apprenticeship or other school-to-work program. In other words, they will eventually count -- they will be high-stakes assessments.
In certifying standards and assessments, NESIC would be, for education, what the Bureau of Weights and Measures and the National Institute of Standards and Technology -- the old National Bureau of Standards -- are for other fields. Many companies produce scales, rulers and thermometers. These bureaus establish standards for measurement and certify whether a given scale measures accurately according to the standard. In other words, NESIC would act as a kind of "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." Most important, in doing its work, it would take into account the standards met by students in other industrialized countries.
All of this is very good -- indeed essential -- and long overdue. What is wrong with this legislation?
The law would prohibit NESIC from certifying any assessment unless it meets certain criteria. Many of these criteria are reasonable -- such as the usual requirements for reliability and validity. But one of the requirements is that the test be fair. Who could object to that?
Once upon a time, "fairness" meant getting rid of racial stereotypes in tests or trivia that gave an unfair advantage to wealthy people who played polo or raised horses. That's the kind of fairness the Administration was after. But fairness also has come to mean that tests should not have disparate impact on minority groups. That's the way courts are most likely to interpret it, and that's why some members of Congress are insisting on this fairness language. If they succeed, it would mean that if a smaller proportion of African-Americans or Hispanics than whites succeeded on an assessment, the assessment could not be used in making any high-stakes decisions such as promotion or graduation or college entry. Or if stakes were attached, there would be a system of race-norming where different groups would be held to different standards. In either case, the purposes of the new system of standards and assessments would be thwarted.
Since most minorities are economically disadvantaged and have suffered from poor education, there undoubtedly will be disparities in outcomes when the new system begins. But using this to derail a high-quality system of standards and assessments does nothing to help minority children in the long run. Disparate results can point us to differences in resources spent on poor and wealthy students. True, they can do that now. But if there were real standards and stakes attached to them, the public would be more inclined to invest money in educating poor children. Moreover, that fact is that disparities already exist in the real world -- in job opportunities and in earnings. Holding some groups of youngsters to second-class standards will only help perpetuate real-world disparities. Holding all students to the same high expectations will help raise minority students' achievement -- and help put an end to these disparities.
We have already seen that higher expectations lead to higher achievement. When states began requiring minimum competency exams for high school graduation in the 1970s, we heard that minority dropout rates would increase. Just the opposite happened. When states began raising academic course requirements in the 1980s, we heard again that minority dropout rates would increase. They didn't. Moreover, minority participation in the SAT and ACT exams soared. Something similar has happened as a result raising academic standards for college athletes. There were strong objections, again because of the specter of disparate impact. But instead of standards leading to wholesale failure, more minority athletes are doing better.
Most important, students themselves will work harder to succeed because they will clearly see the relationship between their hard work, school success and the goals they want to achieve -- a good job or entry to college. Goals 2000 is an essential framework for turning our schools around. It's important that it be done right.