Hello "all",
 
Sheila had posted an extract from _The Daily Report Card_ (3 Jul 96) 
entitled "Standard Bearers" that referenced a report by The Business 
Roundtable called "The Business Leader's Guide for Setting Academic 
Standards".  I found the piece interesting and ordered the full report, 
what follows are some of my thoughts on the report itself.
 
I've not participated in academic standard development myself, as a 
matter of fact this area is rather new to me...I found as I read the 
report, my "must read" list quickly grew.  I've spent some of the last 
couple of weeks searching out sites on the web that talk to the 
"standards" issue and have been saving/printing/reading information on 
the subject.  
 
I'm certainly not an expert in this area, but have found it incredibly 
interesting and find myself viewing it as I do a previously 
undiscovered author's works--I'm trying to read as much as I can find 
on the subject.  I welcome constructive comments from others who have 
read the report and view its content differently as well as other 
suggested works on the issue of academic standards.
 
The DRC brief did a good job of hitting the highlights of the guide (as 
I will refer to it from here-on-out), I will add to that my own 
thoughts.
 
My first impression was that of a "slick" business publication, made to 
catch the readers eye but not real long on actual information.  After 
reading through the guide, I was pleasantly surprised at how much 
information it presented.  Norman Augustine, Chairman of the Education 
Task Force of The Business Roundtable (Vice Chairman, President and CEO 
of Lockheed Martin Corp) presented the reasoning behind the guide in 
his foreward:
 
        "We created this guide to help business leaders get involved 
and stay involved in setting standards in their states and communities. 
This guide takes readers from rhetorical exercises to classroom 
reality"
 
        "The guide also provides a helpful background for newcomers in 
the educational debate.  Why the need for higher standards? What do 
standards look like? How do they differ from state to state, community 
to community?  What are some of the barriers to implementing standards 
and rigorous testing?  This guide begins to answer these questions and 
points readers to additional sources."
 
Personally, I believe that people need to be involved...plain and 
simple.  Perhaps that is why I took to this guide as quickly as I did, 
the recommendation that business leaders need to play a part in 
standards development made sense to me.  [as I've read further on the 
topic, it must be a community effort to include educators, parents, 
administrators, business partners etc.]  
 
I feel that the perception is that businesses, being "bottom line" 
orientated, only care about ensuring a future workforce that will 
contribute to that end--more profits.  As such, their involvement in 
the standards setting business may be suspect, are their motives 
compatible with their counterparts in academia who see education as 
more than just "job preparation".  Do business leaders really care 
about outcomes that enhance the student as a contributing, thoughtful, 
responsible citizen?  I would hope so, but I also realize that 
business leaders *do* have a vested personal interest in this area.
 
The guide does provide some plain language ideas for business people to 
"get involved" The six options for involvement (pgs 6-7) call upon 
common sense and the expertise that has long since been a part of our 
business community. Each option presented is supplemented by a short 
case study of the option in action--an excellent means for getting the 
point across.  I found this cross reference extremely helpful to me 
(the uninitiated) as I worked to assimilate the ideas presented. The 
DRC article list each option so I won't repeat them here.  Each option 
illustrated a way that business people could *communicate* with 
educators and families to participate in the process of developing 
standards.  It struck me as almost too simple -- get involved, ask 
questions, share information, collaborate with educators, *be a part of 
the solution* instead of sitting back and moaning about what tough 
shape we're in.
 
I put this guide to the test, I knew zip about this topic prior to 
reading through it.  Mr Augustine and his task force intended for this 
guide to help the "newbie".  I found it to be a good introduction to 
the topic.  Plain, straight forward definitions of content standards and
performance standards (w/examples) provided a good start.  A quick 
history of the debate and background of the "standards movement" was 
useful in identifying "jumping off points" for further research on the 
topic.  Their timeline began with the publication of _A Nation at Risk_ 
in 1983 (see my earlier post to get an ASCII version of the report) and 
progressed through the Education Summit held this past March.
 
I expected to see a more prominent bias in the report then what I 
actually read.  I felt they did a decent job in presenting some of the 
many questions/problem areas surrounding setting academic standards.  
Each question area presented a brief discussion along with a caveat, 
the "Keep in mind" comment following each area generally presented as 
Paul Harvey might say..."the rest of the story" :)  
 
 
                  -==-
--- TriDog 10.0
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