When looking at your state’s progression toward student competency with 21st century skills, you need to take into account the level at which your state’s standards require students to perform. Many of the state’s touting their top ten status for student performance and graduation rates, also have the lowest level of curriculum standards for their students. Therefore I have to ponder… is it better in this country to live in a state that has the highest level of academic standards (as my state does) or to live in a state that waters down the standards to a sub-standard level and claims to be in the top ten in education for the United States?
Three states—Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Missouri—have established world-class standards in math and reading as the goal for all students. Every other state has established a lower proficiency standard, and some states (for example, Georgia and Tennessee) declare most students proficient even when their performance is miles short of the NAEP standard.
John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, recently wrote the following in the Carolina Journal: Scholars Paul Peterson and Frederick Hess are editors of the journal EducationNext. They’ve just released their latest study of state vs. federal proficiency standards. There is only one straight-A performer on the list: South Carolina. Our neighbors to the south haven’t dumbed down their standards one bit in order to make themselves look better. As for North Carolina, we get a D+. We’re among a small minority of states getting Ds or Fs.
Now this makes me proud to be from South Carolina. It makes me proud to have taught in South Carolina. It makes me happy to know that in South Carolina you aren’t just passed on to the next grade but you earn your way through world-class standards! Hooray for high standards and success for all in our new global society. Times have changed and learning has to change!
