Columnist Bill Hanlon: Groups grading state education standards need same criteria

BILL HANLON is a school district administrator and a member of the State Board of Education. He can be reached on the Internet at [email protected]

IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, a number of Washington-based organizations have been grading states' educational standards. The biggest problem with these report cards has been that the criteria is not the same, resulting in different grades from different groups for the same set of academic standards. A state often receives a B plus from one organization and a D minus from another.

These reports are challenging the reform movements taking place across the nation because the conflicting reports are confounding policy-makers, educators and the public. One organization, the Council for Basic Education, announced it is getting out of the ratings game. Unfortunately, the states can't.

Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton was not pleased with the F his state received for its standards. Kentucky has been a leader in educational reform. Patton's displeasure was with the criteria used to assign the F.

Since each organization does things differently, Patton wanted to know how a state is supposed to cope with these inconsistencies. He was told he should do a better job explaining to the public the grading criteria from each organization. His response was that while many in the public do not understand the criteria, they do understand an F.

This ratings game has been scrutinized lately. I attended the annual meeting of the Education Commission of States last week. While the focus was on technology, a lot of the discussions and a couple of workshops were on the organizations evaluating educational standards. Most of the discussions were critical of these groups, and some suggested that the states should grade the graders.

The consensus was that the organizations should standardize criteria before they grade states. In the educational group's June publication, "Commission Connection," two of four pages were dedicated to the controversy.

Let's make sure we understand this notion of criteria used to evaluate academic standards. How would you react if you just received a note from your child's math teacher indicating he earned an F? Your first reaction might be that your child is not doing well in math, that some changes have to be made, and you might even impose sanctions.

Now, imagine how you would feel if a couple of weeks later you discovered the F was assigned because your child did his work in pen instead of pencil -- that the work he did in math was actually pretty good. Would that get your attention? Would you believe the F was misleading?

This is not so farfetched. Nevadans always have been seen as an independent bunch, they believe in local control. This can be seen in our state's educational standards. The state courses of study provide the parameters for school districts' curriculum guides. It always has been up to local school boards to develop specific curriculum.

That's one reason Nevada has not fared well on the national reports. National organizations are judging state standards. If they would have examined local standards, maybe a different grade would have been assigned.

One Washington-based raters admitted that its grades were not necessarily based on quality, but on whether there were mechanisms in place in the state.

For instance, one criterion might be if a statewide exam is needed for high school graduation. It doesn't matter if the test is good or bad, just that there is a test. That borders on being nuts to me. But that's a criterion used to grade the state's educational standards.

I suggest that when these grades are published, that the criteria that determines the grade be looked at closely. I just don't care if a child did his math pen -- if the work is there, it's there.

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