After only 7 percent of Virginia schools met that standard last spring, in the second year of the test, the board has proposed waiving some sanctions against those schools that have failed but are able to demonstrate progress. And Los Angeles school administrators, who calculated that they would have had to hold back nearly 1 of every 2 students if they went through with a plan to end automatic promotions in all grades, said this week that they were now considering whether to erect such gates in just two grades. People are backpedaling. The idea of setting high standards, and writing tests to ensure that they are met, has been advanced by a broad chorus of policy makers and educators, including Murphy. The advocates believe such policies offer insurance that students in rich and poor schools alike will cover the same ground, as well as a tonic to a nation that has grown weary of its children's academic shortcomings.
Many teachers report being unprepared, and at times confused, by what the states have written.
They maintain that more money needs to be spent on professional development and smaller class sizes. Students complain that they are being tested on material to which they have not yet been exposed. And parents lament that their children are being penalized for the failings of adults. Until you can walk into the average classroom in the average school and find the content being taught in a way that would help the average student meet the standard, it is not fair to penalize the students. That the politicians are tuning in, and responding, to such rumblings was obvious in October, when many of the 24 governors who gathered at an education summit meeting in Palisades, N.Y., conceded that they had been taken aback by the demoralizing effects of their new policies.