Lowering standards may have some short-term benefits, but it's a long-term disaster. High standards, and quality teaching that helps students meet high standards, is a recipe for success.
It turns out that what the Air Force Academy figured out over 7 years ago about university students holds true for high school as well:
Students learn more when their teachers have high expectations, concludes a study in North Carolina, reports Kevin Mahnken. Algebra students with "tough" teachers earned higher test scores, and did better in subsequent math courses.
High standards “change the way students engage with school,” said Seth Gershenson, an economist at American University and one of the paper’s co-authors.
Researchers compared students' course grades to their performance on end-of-year exams. "Compared with students who had previously demonstrated similar levels of math performance, those assigned to stricter graders saw larger scoring gains" in Algebra I, and did better when they got to Algebra II, Mahnken reports.
2 comments:
Algebra students with "tough" teachers earned higher test scores, and did better in subsequent math courses.
That seems obvious, but it would be an accomplishment to get everyone on the same page with the idea that equity and self-esteem aren't the key to success.
A district could improve academics by just telling teachers that a class average should be about 80% or whatever suits their grading scale.
It would be an interesting exercise for a district to compare the score students get on standardized tests with the grade they earned in the corresponding class.
No one will ever conduct such an exercise.
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