Remedy for Student
Achievement Progress
State education
department and school district leaders now have access to an important new
resource to improve classroom achievement. The result of years of research
and analysis by a highly talented team of education, business and technology
experts, the SundRy Education BASIC Aligned•By•Design technology solution is
the remedy policy-makers require to the remove the critical system barriers
blocking student achievement progress.
Lack of Meaningful Standards is a Root Problem
In the wake of standards-based reform implementation,
education leaders have worked tirelessly, and largely unsuccessfully, to
meet federal and state education benchmarks. Experts of the educational
processes in place in most States agree that the barriers are systemic and
interrelated. Their conclusion includes findings that:
• State standards are devoid of real content, lacking in
specificity and inadequately defined by the skills, concepts and knowledge
underpinning them;
• Curriculums are disconnected from standards, confusing
to teachers and focused more on ‘teaching to the test’ than the content
standard;
• State assessments relate to standards so broadly that
they are meaningless in a standards-based education system; and
• The natural alignment of standards, curriculum and
assessments needed to give teacher’s assurance about what their students are
expected to learn is universally absent.
The frustration confronting
educators stems from the inability of state education agencies to define
content standards in a way that is useful for teaching and learning.
Education experts agree that standards need to be translated into much more
detailed, structured elements that:
• Are true specifications of the
skills, knowledge and information to be taught and the cognitive level
expected at each grade level;
• Allow curriculum to be developed
that is truly linked to standards;
• Allow assessment to be designed
that track curriculum and standards; and
• Allow schools to meet state
education goals and other requirements.
Teachers Using What Is
Available
Unfortunately, current state
academic standards are largely empty of content and represent more of an end
product instead of the purposeful, driving force in the classroom learning
process. This reality has left teachers confused and unsure about what and
how to teach their students. It has focused teachers on teaching to the
‘test’ instead of teaching to content standards, resulting in limited
progress on state assessments as validated by the data in the figure below.
A study by the American
Federation of Teachers (AFT) found that 11 out of 50 states completely met
the criteria for having both strong content standards and documenting that
state tests align to the standards, specifically in grades 3 - 12 and
subjects required by NCLB (reading and math). However, their findings do not
correlate positively with NAEP assessment results. The chart above confirms
that state standards are not driving teaching or learning and that teachers
are looking elsewhere for inputs to develop and deliver curriculum.
Root Problem Solved by
BASIC
The Aligned•By•Design technology
solves these underlying problems and enables education to follow a proven
quality model. The application of BASIC by states and local school districts
will result in a significant, measurable improvement in student achievement
levels because the system provide educators with the tools and durable
processes required to develop, maintain and manage a truly aligned,
benchmarked and rigorous standards-based educational system.
The BASIC tools and processes allow
any state department of education to achieve its visionary goal by enabling
it to:
• Refine and contain state standards
at their primitive, knowledge-linked, detailed level;
• Have an Aligned•By•Design system
that aligns its refined academic standards to rigorous curriculum,
functional lesson plans and state assessments; and
• Provide all school districts
access to these tools and processes and the ability to utilize them at the
classroom level.
BASIC provides state agencies with
the Aligned By Design automated tools and processes needed to convert
today’s high level state standards into clear and easily understood content
standards that are disaggregated and detailed and then link them to the
specific skills and knowledge students should acquire as they pass through
school.
The tools enable state school boards
to set forth plainly and clearly what skills and knowledge students should
acquire as they pass through school and what results schools should produce.
BASIC allows states to promulgate
standards that leave no doubt or question as to what needs to be learned and
what is going to be assessed by end-of-year tests. It answers the pressing
question facing teachers: “What am I really supposed to teach?” With BASIC,
everything is defined. It is fully descriptive without being prescriptive,
focusing on the delivery of knowledge and skills, not the generalized
concepts currently presented to teachers as "standards of learning."
Having clearly defined content
standards and the knowledge they represent, BASIC facilitates the natural
alignment of standards, curriculum and assessments and brings that alignment
to the classroom. Because BASIC views standards from teacher’s perspective,
it forces states to tell teachers exactly what is expected to be taught and
what is to be tested.
For additional information, please send an email to:
info@sundryeducation.com or call (703)
391-0033.
