3/28/08

Columbus Dispatch Editorial

Developing consistent educational standards within and among states is an important step to improve Americans’ education. Some central Ohio schools that are joining in a project to create a standard end-of-course test for Algebra II deserve praise for helping to do that.

Ohio’s education-reform efforts include a mandate that, starting with the Class of 2014, students must pass Algebra II to graduate from high school.

But how does the state know a student has mastered the material? Despite state-issued curriculum guidelines, Algebra II isn’t the same in every school, and an A student in one high school might be unable to pass the final exam at a different high school.

The answer is a common final exam.

Ohio and 13 other states are working to create such a test, to be given once in the fall and once in the spring. About 85 schools in 35 of Ohio’s 88 counties will participate in a pilot project.

The results should reveal which schools and school districts are setting standards for Algebra II higher or lower than others.

That’s important to know, so colleges and prospective employers can be sure that an Ohio high-school graduate has mastered what his diploma says he has mastered.

Participation in the project will help schools align their Algebra II courses to the material on the test.

That’s the way curriculum development should work: Once a common test is established as the goal for a given course, schools should be free to develop their own methods for reaching the goal.

Many education reforms, including much of the No Child Left Behind law, have it backward. They prescribe programs and methods for making students proficient in key academic areas but allow individual states to determine what proficient means. The result has been standards that vary widely from state to state, so that a child deemed proficient in reading in one state could be unable to pass another state’s reading tests.

Local communities shouldn’t decide individually what constitutes proficiency. That doesn’t serve students who will have to make their way in an increasingly competitive global economy. Local control of the means and methods of teaching, down to the level of each school principal, should come into play after common standards have been set.