Standards

Study: Most Students Fail to Meet Common-Standards Bar

By Catherine Gewertz — December 06, 2010 6 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Most students have far to go before they master the skills and knowledge outlined in the new common standards that have been adopted by all but seven states, concludes a report released today.

The study is the first to try to identify the ground that must be covered if states and school districts are going to hold their students to the new standards. It found that only one-third to one-half of the nation’s 11th graders are proficient in the content and skills that the common-core standards specify as necessary in mathematics and English/language arts for access to good jobs or success in entry-level, credit-bearing college courses.

ACT Inc., the Iowa City, Iowa-based nonprofit that produces one of the country’s two dominant college-entrance exams, performed the analysis by identifying items in the ACT exam that reflect specific skills or content in the new standards. As its sample, the ACT looked at some 257,000 high school juniors who took the exam as part of a statewide administration, to winnow out the tilt of a sample heavy with college-aspiring students.

Using that broad pool, the organization determined how students who score in the ACT’s “college ready” range performed on the items deemed reflective of common-core content. That created a proxy, or estimate, of the cutoff score all students must reach to be considered well prepared in those areas, said Scott Montgomery, an ACT assistant vice president who worked on the report.

The resulting profile is one of a student body largely unprepared for the common standards. The problem was worse in mathematics than in English/language arts, and worse for racial and ethnic minority students than for their white peers.

Within English/language arts, only 38 percent of 11th graders hit the proficient range in reading, and barely more than half reached it in writing and in language. Particular subsets of skills stood out as weaknesses: Only three in 10 proved themselves well-versed enough in conquering progressively more complex texts, and only a shade more demonstrated enough strength in their knowledge of language and vocabulary.

Science Literacy Weak

Of particular concern to ACT researchers—and common-core authors contacted by Education Week—was students’ weak performance in science literacy. Not even one-quarter of the students showed college-ready levels of skill in understanding scientific reading material. They showed more strength in reading literature, and in grappling with informational texts and social studies material, though proficiency levels in those areas still ranged only between 37 percent and 41 percent.

Common-Core Adoptions

BRIC ARCHIVE

SOURCE: Education Week

In math, only 37 percent of students showed proficiency in statistics and probability, and only four in 10 did so in functions. The weakest math area was number and quantity, where only 34 percent showed proficiency in skills considered foundational to later math study. ACT officials were troubled by students’ weaknesses on a set of items that reflect their prowess with “mathematical practices,” such as reasoning abstractly, modeling with math, and making sense of problems and persevering to solve them. Only one-third of students showed proficiency in those skills.

Both math and English showed minority students’ particular struggles with mastery. Only one in 10 African-American students, for instance, reached college-ready levels in reading and in the number and quantity area of math. Hispanic students consistently outperformed black students, but significantly trailed Caucasian peers. Results for Asian students were not broken out because there were too few in the sample size to facilitate that, ACT officials said.

Cynthia B. Schmeiser, the president of ACT’s education division, said that the study defines “clear areas of instructional deficiency” that states and districts can address as they reshape teaching and learning in response to the common standards.

“States need to know what their students’ achievement looks like relative to the common core,” she said in a conference call with reporters. “What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What can they focus on now and get a leg up to move forward with implementation?”

The report is a “baseline study” that “raises some real important issues for policymakers at the state level” as they gear up to implement the new standards, said Gene Wilhoit, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, which co-led the initiative to have state and private-sector experts collaborate in designing the standards.

Accordingly, the study’s authors offered detailed instructional recommendations to address the weaknesses pinpointed in the report. They suggested, for instance, that states funnel more energy into making sure students read progressively more complex texts as they go through school and that they develop stronger cross-disciplinary literacy skills. In math, schools should pay greater attention to building a strong foundation in early-grades number-and-quantity skills and beefing up students’ understanding of mathematical processes and practices, the report urges.

The authors advised states, as well, to ensure that teachers have sound professional development so they are prepared for the new standards and that they are provided with model lessons, good formative assessment strategies, and other tools for guiding instruction.

States must also recognize and prepare for the “significant shift” of moving to “fewer, clearer, higher” standards, which will “fundamentally reframe” expectations for students, the report says. Crucial to successful implementation, the authors said, is setting realistic goals and timelines for proficiency under the new standards.

“Rather than encouraging states and districts to adopt weakened definitions of college and career readiness, policymakers should improve current accountability systems so that schools embrace challenging yet realistic goals rooted in how well students demonstrate academic growth” in mastering the standards, the report says.

Assessment Issues

ACT officials, as well as outside experts, cautioned that while the study’s findings offer an instructive early portrait of students’ readiness for the standards, they must also be interpreted with caution because the analysis was done before any serious, widespread effort to teach to the new standards.

Additionally, no one yet knows the format and content of the assessments currently being designed for the common standards by groups of states. How those assessments take shape will be pivotal in making the curricular aims of the common standards meaningful, said W. James Popham, a professor emeritus of education at the University of California, Los Angeles who focuses on assessment.

“Any long-lasting educational decisions based on as-yet-unmeasured curricular aims should be made warily until we have goal-attainment assessments at hand,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Douglas J. McRae, a retired assessment expert based in Monterey, Calif., commended the ACT report for being the first to shed light on the gap between where students are and where they need to be under the new standards. The report pinpoints a key policy problem as well, he said, by suggesting that states adopt realistic goals and timelines for proficiency, thus avoiding the public-relations fallout that could result if unrealistic expectations aren’t met.

“The realistic thing to do is to adopt longer timelines than what may be politically possible,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Jason Zimba, one of the lead authors of the math section of the common standards, said he welcomed the study’s recommendation to focus on early-grades foundational math, which is typically “beneath the radar of state testing.”

And David Coleman, who co-led the writing of the English/language arts section, said the study confirms much of what the standards are meant to address: among other things, students’ struggles with such college-necessary skills as handling complex texts and mastering reading material in subjects like social studies and science.

A version of this article appeared in the January 12, 2011 edition of Education Week

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Standards Explainer What’s the Purpose of Standards in Education? An Explainer
What are standards? Why are they important? What's the Common Core? Do standards improve student achievement? Our explainer has the answers.
11 min read
Photo of students taking test.
F. Sheehan for EdWeek / Getty
Standards Florida's New African American History Standards: What's Behind the Backlash
The state's new standards drew national criticism and leave teachers with questions.
9 min read
Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference at the Celebrate Freedom Foundation Hangar in West Columbia, S.C. July 18, 2023. For DeSantis, Tuesday was supposed to mark a major moment to help reset his stagnant Republican presidential campaign. But yet again, the moment was overshadowed by Donald Trump. The former president was the overwhelming focus for much of the day as DeSantis spoke out at a press conference and sat for a highly anticipated interview designed to reassure anxious donors and primary voters that he's still well-positioned to defeat Trump.
Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference in West Columbia, S.C., on July 18, 2023. Florida officials approved new African American history standards that drew national backlash, and which DeSantis defended.
Sean Rayford/AP
Standards Here’s What’s in Florida’s New African American History Standards
Standards were expanded in the younger grades, but critics question the framing of many of the new standards.
1 min read
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the historic Ritz Theatre in downtown Jacksonville, Fla., on July 21, 2023. Harris spoke out against the new standards adopted by the Florida State Board of Education in the teaching of Black history.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the historic Ritz Theatre in downtown Jacksonville, Fla., on July 21, 2023. Harris spoke out against the new standards adopted by the Florida state board of education in the teaching of Black history.
Fran Ruchalski/The Florida Times-Union via AP
Standards Opinion How One State Found Common Ground to Produce New History Standards
A veteran board member discusses how the state school board pushed past partisanship to offer a richer, more inclusive history for students.
10 min read
Image shows a multi-tailed arrow hitting the bullseye of a target.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty