Academic standards are a central focus of U.S. education. Whether motivated by the national standards conversation, state accountability requirements, or a desire to clearly identify what students should learn, school leaders across the country are grappling with the implications of adopting standards. Regardless of where schools are in the process, leaders are beginning to see that standards have widespread implications for their school systems. One district administrator put it this way:

"Our initial perception about standards was fairly narrow. We thought we’d modify the curriculum a bit, and we’d be done. But now we realize that standards affect everything - from communications with parents, to grading, to staff development. Now that we have standards, teachers are focusing more on what students are learning and why. They’re reexamining how they teach, which is raising staff development issues. The ripple effects go way beyond what most of us originally imagined."

Step 1: Identify the Initiative

During the past few years, there has been an almost constant flurry of activity surrounding standards. States and districts have both undertaken, and in some cases, are still undertaking, the arduous task of identifying standards. A number of districts have also revised their curriculum guides and large-scale assessments to reflect new standards. However, all of these efforts do not necessarily translate into standards being implemented in the classroom. In many cases, teachers’ practices have changed little in light of standards. As a result, a number of districts are now looking for ways to ensure that standards have a positive effect where they matter most - in the classroom. In this section, we presume that a school or district has undertaken a needs assessment and discovered that they now need to focus their efforts on implementing standards in the classroom.

Step 2: Use Guiding Questions to Create Specific Questions

After identifying and articulating the initiative at hand, the next step of the process is to translate the guiding questions for each domain into more specific questions, as shown in Exhibit 6 below. As noted earlier and highlighted in Exhibit 6, these specific questions are derived in part from a careful examination of each component of the system. These questions are offered here not as a comprehensive list of all the issues school leaders should think about when implementing standards in the classroom, but rather as examples of the diverse issues that schools and districts typically must address as they adopt a standards-based approach in the classroom.

Step 3: Consider Possible Actions

By asking the kinds of specific questions suggested in Exhibit 6, school leaders can get a big picture of the far-reaching effect of tying standards to classroom lessons, units, and assessments. The guidance provided in this section is drawn from a variety of sources, including conversations with school leaders, research findings, the experiences of McREL staff in the field, and McREL’s publication Designing Standards-Based Districts, Schools, and Classrooms (Marzano & Kendall, 1996). Again, the questions and guidance offered in this section are by no means a comprehensive list of all the relevant systemic issues. Rather, they are intended to stimulate thinking about the ripple effects that implementing standards can have throughout a school system.

Technical Domain Implications
Standards • Curriculum • Instruction • Assessment

Q. How well is our curriculum aligned with standards?

Most states require schools and districts to align their curriculum guides to identified standards. However, a number of studies have shown that curriculum guides often do not translate into classroom practice (Doyle, 1992; Stodolosky, 1989; Yoon, Burstein, & Gold, n.d.). Because of time constraints and personal preferences, teachers often skip over materials designated in curriculum guides. In a standards-based school, this can mean that some standards are left out, while material not considered critical is included. Therefore, it may be necessary to carefully examine teachers’ unit and lesson plans to ensure that standards are being covered in the classroom.

Another systemic implication to consider is that aligning a curriculum with standards can require rather dramatic changes in the curriculum and textbooks. This is an unforeseen consequence - one that many districts cannot immediately afford to address. One approach is to identify the standards that are already addressed in the current curriculum and fill in gaps over time by enhancing the curriculum as human and financial resources permit (see Laboratory Network Project, 2000).

Possible Actions

Enhance curriculum as needed and as resources permit to more adequately cover standards.

Examine teachers’ unit and lesson plans to see how well standards are being taught in the classroom.

Enhance curriculum as needed, and as resources permit, to more adequately cover standards.

Q. What implications do standards have for teachers’ instructional methods?

Research and experience reveal the importance of ensuring that standards and benchmarks are clearly communicated in each course, unit, and, indeed, each lesson. A recent meta-analysis of 53 research studies (Marzano, 1998) found that when students were clear in advance about what they were learning, their achievement was, on average, 34 percentile points higher on tests used in these studies than students in control groups. This finding suggests that teachers should explicitly make the connection between standards and every lesson they teach. This might be done by posting the standards on the wall, a bulletin board, or chalkboard or writing the relevant standards at the top of each assignment.

Another important issue to consider is that different standards call for students to acquire different types of knowledge. Some standards identify skills (sometimes called procedural knowledge) that students will learn, such as reading a map, performing long division, or setting up an experiment. Other standards identify facts, concepts, or generalizations (declarative knowledge) that students will learn, such as the concept of a geographic region, the concept of a numerator, or the characteristics of an amoeba. Teaching different types of knowledge requires different instructional strategies. The best teachers are those who expand their repertoire of instructional practices to suit the particular kinds of knowledge addressed by specific standards.

Possible Actions

Make sure students, as well as teachers, are focused on standards.

Provide teachers with training on using different instructional strategies to teach different types of knowledge addressed by standards.

Q. To what extent are teachers able to design standards-based classroom assessments?

During the school day, the people who are closest to students and know them best are teachers. It makes sense, then, that teachers should have the primary responsibility for measuring their students’ progress on standards and benchmarks. But it is imperative that teachers know how to design and administer effective in-class assessments. This is true not only because educators need to accurately gauge what students are learning, but also because, as Mitchell (1988) notes, "assessment drives instruction" (p. 2). Poorly designed assessments can drive teaching and learning in the wrong direction.

This means, of course, that teachers must use the kinds of assessments that best evaluate the degree to which students have learned the knowledge and skills addressed by state or district standards and benchmarks. Multiple-choice, true-false, and other forced-choice tests can be useful tools to assess students’ knowledge of particular facts. But they are probably not the best method for assessing students’ understanding of complex concepts. In short, different forms of assessment are appropriate for different types of knowledge. Teachers may need to revise their classroom tests or develop new activities for judging students’ progress on standards. Forced-choice tests should not be discarded, but rather supplemented with other forms of assessment, such as essays, performance tasks, student portfolios, and self-assessments.

Possible Actions

Give teachers the training and resources they need to design appropriate classroom assessments.

Give teachers time and opportunities to share testing strategies.

Personal Domain Implications
Staff Development • Leadership & Supervision • Internal Communication • Climate & Culture

Q. What staff development do teachers need in order to use standards effectively?

Teachers often need a considerable amount of guidance to learn how to implement standards in their classrooms. They may need guidance not only on how to teach standards, but also on how to assess students’ progress toward meeting them. In particular, they may need training on how to grade students’ progress in meeting individual standards or how to create useful performance tasks. Helping teachers develop these crucial skills usually requires more than a one-day in-service. Teacher study groups, multi-day workshops, and longer-term arrangements with outside professionals may also be required.

In fact, many school leaders have found that professional development is more effective when it is delivered through teacher study groups. Accomplishing this, however, often requires rethinking organizational structures and soliciting support from the school board to create opportunities for teachers to work together, as discussed in more detail within the Personal and Organizational Domain Implications of Example 2.

Possible Actions

Develop ongoing staff development related to creating effective standards-based classrooms.

Set up teacher study groups to design standards-based lessons and units.

Q. What leadership support is needed to help us implement standards in the classroom?

Principals whose schools are in the midst of implementing standards say that regularly observing classroom instruction is key to ensuring that all teachers are moving toward standards-based instruction. In particular, it’s important to encourage teachers to carefully consider standards when making instructional choices. This feedback can be given in a number of ways - for example, by positively reinforcing teachers who are effectively tying standards to lessons and assessing students’ progress on individual standards. Other, more concrete methods can also be effective, for example requiring teachers to specify on their unit and lesson plans which standards and/or benchmarks they are addressing.

At the same time, many school leaders say it is important for leaders to create a climate of trust in the school. Patterson (1993) notes that this can be partly accomplished by allowing staff members to express their perspectives, even if they conflict with organizational direction. Another key is providing a safe environment in which staff members openly and respectfully resolve conflict. School leaders can help to create this kind of climate by modeling these behaviors and by recognizing that they do not diminish their stature as leaders when they open up their organization to diverse perspectives.

Possible Actions

Observe classrooms to see how well standards are being taught.

Require teachers to link unit and lesson plans to standards.

Q. How can we create a school culture that supports standards?

Most teachers, especially veteran teachers, have seen education reform movements come and go. As a result, they may wonder whether the standards movement will fade away, like "open concept" schools or outcomes-based education, and eventually become a footnote in education history. In light of the enormous effort required to implement standards, it’s especially important for teachers to understand that standards aren’t going away and that, more important, using a standards-based approach will improve student learning.

One way to diffuse resistance to standards is to provide teachers with the training they need to truly implement standards in their classrooms. For example, teachers will most likely need to learn how to move from a traditional grading system to one that is intrinsically focused on standards. This sort of professional development can help set a clear expectation that standards should affect what happens in classrooms and that teachers have a primary role to play in helping students achieve standards.

Experienced school leaders also suggest making it clear that moving toward standards-based classrooms is an overarching reform initiative. This does not mean that a school can have no other improvement initiatives, but rather, that all other reform efforts should support the school’s move toward a standards-based system. Casting this kind of spotlight on standards can help communicate the message that standards are important and are part of a new, lasting way of educating students.

Possible Actions

Involve teachers in every phase of reform.

Make standards the overarching reform initiative.

Organizational Domain Implications
External Environment • Stakeholders • Resource Allocation • Technology • Accountability

Q. How will we communicate students’ progress on standards to stakeholders, in particular to parents?

School leaders may also need to consider how to report students’ progress on standards to parents. There are a number of ways to give feedback about students’ progress (for a detailed discussion of these approaches, see Marzano & Kendall, 1996, pp. 125-172). One option is to continue to assign letter grades, but to supplement these grades with scores that reflect students’ progress toward specific standards addressed in each course. Another approach is to report progress only by the individual standards addressed in each course.

One difficulty in using this sort of reporting format is that many teachers consider nonacademic factors, such as attendance or participation, when assigning overall grades. Thus, before adopting a standards-based reporting format, school leaders may need to consider whether grades or scores will continue to be assigned for each of these factors. Or they may need to determine the relative importance of these factors compared to academic standards. Although reporting students’ mastery of specific standards will no doubt raise questions such as these and require significant changes on the part of teachers, the feedback this approach offers to students and parents can be a valuable means for promoting students’ mastery of standards.

Possible Actions

Expand report cards to reflect students’ progress in meeting standards.

Report only scores or grades on individual standards.

Q. How can we better use resources to support the implementation of standards in the classroom?

Also, it is important to recognize that implementing standards in the classroom often requires an enormous investment of staff time to craft new lesson and unit plans, new assessments, and new reporting systems. To help teachers accomplish these changes, leaders may need to rethink teachers’ schedules and responsibilities. They may also need to examine their nonacademic programs and consider creating larger classes in these areas or moving support staff from nonacademic subjects to core subjects. Another option is to refocus nonacademic programs to cover the core academic knowledge and skills identified by standards.

Possible Actions

Provide additional learning opportunities for students who do not initially achieve standards.

Reallocate resources used for nonacademic programs.

Q. How can our accountability system provide teachers with adequate incentives?

Providing teachers with training and resources for aligning curricula and classroom assessments with standards is critical. But many school leaders also believe that teachers should be given incentives to do so. One way to accomplish this might be to hold teachers accountable for students’ achievement on standards-based assessments. However, this approach is fraught with difficulties given the large margin of error inherent in any single measure of performance and the potential of high-stakes tests to encourage teachers to narrow the curriculum.

A more appropriate and fair way to provide teachers with incentives to implement standards might be to judge their efforts in the classroom. Principals usually are responsible for making these judgements, but all too often they base their evaluations on only one or two limited observations of teachers. A preferable approach might be to use peer evaluation, in which teams of teachers spend time observing teachers and offering constructive criticism. Some school leaders who have adopted this approach say that it not only helps teachers under scrutiny to improve their practices, but also helps those teachers conducting the reviews improve their own practices as well.

Yet another approach might be to adopt a skills- or competency-based pay system, such as the kind described by Odden and Kelley (1995). Under such a system, teachers are rewarded not for degrees earned and years of experience, but rather for their ability to demonstrate skills that the school or district has identified as important. In a standards-based system, these competencies might include the ability to design lesson plans and activities related to standards, to assess students’ progress on specific standards, and to give feedback to students on their progress.

Possible Actions

Create peer review panels to observe the extent to which teachers are creating standards-based classrooms.

Adopt a skills-based pay system that rewards teachers who demonstrate specific skills and competencies.

Next: Example 2: Linking Staff Development To Student Learning