The Alberta Teachers’ Association

High Standards Without Standardization!

In public education systems we need to adopt a new mantra, “high standards without standardization,” because standards and standardization are not the same thing. Having high standards doesn’t mean that we (students, teachers, schools) all reach our potential in the same standardized way. As Andy Hargreaves so wisely states, “We need standards with flexibility, not standardization with force, if we are to get the best from our teachers” (http://andyhargreaves.weebly.com/100-quotes-to-teach-and-lead-by-76-100.html).

This is especially important in Alberta as a new K–4 program of studies is implemented in tandem with the release of our updated teaching quality standards (TQS), the introduction of new school leadership (SLS) and superintendent standards of practice. A fundamental issue for Alberta going forward will be to advance high professional standards, without simply adopting a narrow and standardized approach to curriculum, assessment or professional practice(s).

Standards set a bar of expectations—critical for a healthy society—for example in food safety or the quality of doctors and teachers. But high standards are not the same as standardization; having high standards doesn’t mean that we all reach them in the same way. When a process is standardized, it can be repeated at a lower cost. Industrial manufacturing was built on these principles to reduce cost and standardize output. In the private school movement in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa we now see standardized and scripted curriculum increasingly automated (Riep and Machacek 2016) along with rigidly conformist schools being sold to the public as not only more efficient, but cheaper. As Youngjoo (2010) suggests, “the assumption of expecting the same output by providing the same input disregards the uniqueness of individual students” (p.18).

Albertans want high educational standards for our children, but standardization in education actually narrows learner choice, curriculum, opportunity and value, and is a hallmark of what Pasi Sahlberg (2016) calls the GERM (Global Education Reform Movement). Sahlberg (2016) coined the term GERM to describe a particular type of educational change focused on increased competition between schools for student enrolment; standardization of teaching and learning in schools; a hyperfocus on reading, mathematics and science in schools at the expense of arts, music, physical education and social studies; and reliance on a system of standardized test-based accountability (holding teachers and schools accountable for students’ achievement through external [large-scale] standardized tests).

Fuelled by organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the GERM compels schools and nations to compete for scarce resources and seek vaguely described competitive advantages rather than collaborate. To facilitate managerial accountability, the GERM requires the maintenance of a large bureaucratic infrastructure that generates a seemingly endless stream of standardization, benchmarks and performance indicators—all to feed data infrastructures (Lingard and Sellar 2013; Sahlberg 2016). At its essence, standardization may empower a cheaper process, but it is only through high standards with flexibility that we empower great schools for all and protect our students.

Calling for “high standards without standardization” is a refrain I have used in several keynote addresses recently, and it emerges from a 2017 collaborative research study entitled We the Educators conducted in partnership with Education International, the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation. This recent work is intended to generate a new conversation about the future of public education and can be found at wetheeducators.com. It includes several short videos and a comprehensive review of the research literature on the topic of standardization. Below is an excerpt from the full literature review found at wetheeducators.com.

Standards in education have the potential to both promote and threaten equity.

While standards can manifest in education through, for example, curriculum, learner paths and assessments, they have come to primarily denote “specifications of what should be learned and assessed, open to public scrutiny and, thus, a means of holding both teachers and the education system accountable” (Lepota and Murray 2014, 6).

On the one hand, some advocates (such as McClure 2005) claim that standardization improves accountability and transparency, particularly in terms of the distribution of resources. Further, standards, when implemented fairly with the appropriate context in mind, can establish clear and productive expectations for students, teachers and education systems (Lepota and Murray 2014).

But to what extent is transparency of inherent value (Morozov 2013)? Moreover, does too much focus on outcomes call into question the purpose of education (Biesta 2010)? Some critics (such as Skerrett and Hargreaves 2008 and Tröhler 2014) suggest that standardization inhibits appreciation of, or responsiveness to, student diversity and exceptionalities (for example, students with special needs or students learning the language of instruction). In part, this is because effective teaching cannot be “carr[ied] out by following standard procedures” (Hargreaves and Fullan 2012, 78). In addition, in reducing variety, standardization reduces choice (Blind 2013). Mike Rose (2010, 23) observes the limitations of standards, noting that they “can be used to limit access and stratify students into educational tracks, or can lead to an overly prescriptive and narrow curriculum” that can impede both teacher autonomy and student success. Youngjoo Kim (2010, 18) goes as far as to disparage standardized learning and assessment practices as “cognitive deforming and intellectually stunting.”

An established body of evidence illustrates that educational development, in all its diverse manifestations, is most effectively achieved through innovations undertaken by networks of schools committed to building the adaptive capacity of high-quality teachers, rather than by standardized system edicts or narrow policy directives (Hargreaves and Fullan 2012; Hargreaves and Shirley 2009). This is one of the many reasons why the Association supports Alberta teachers’ professional judgement, action research initiatives and the many international research partnerships that engender localized learning, all sustained through high standards (not standardization) of professional practice.

Dr. Phil McRae is the associate coordinator of research for the Alberta Teachers’ Association and an adjunct professor within the faculty of education at the University of Alberta.

References

Biesta, G. J. J. 2010. Good Education in an Age of Measurement: Ethics, Politics, Democracy. New York: Routledge.

Hargreaves, A., and M. Fullan. 2012. Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hargreaves, A., and D. Shirley. 2009. The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin.

Hinchey, P. H., and K. Cadiero-Kaplan. 2005. “The Future of Teacher Education and Teaching: Another Piece of the Privatization Puzzle.” Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 3, no.2 (October): 30–64.

Lepota, B., and S. Murray. 2014. “Standards in Education and Training: The Challenge. “Perspectives in Education 32, no. 1: 1–6.

Lingard, B., and S. Sellar. 2013. “‘Catalyst Data’: Perverse Systemic Effects of Audit and Accountability in Australian Schooling.” Journal of Education Policy 28, no. 5: 634–56.

McRae, P. 2010. “The Politics of Personalization in the 21st Century.” ATA Magazine 91, no. 1 (Fall): 8–11. Also available at www.teachers.ab.ca/Publications/ATA%20Magazine/Volume-91/Number-1/Pages/The-Politics-of-Personalization-in-the-21st-Century.aspx (accessed August 27, 2018).

Morozov, E. 2013. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. New York: PublicAffairs.

Riep, C., and M. Machacek. 2016. Schooling the Poor Profitably: The Innovations andDeprivations of Bridge International Academies in Uganda. Brussels: Education International. Also available at https://download.ei-ie.org/Docs/WebDepot/DOC_Final_28sept.pdf (accessed August 27, 2018).

Rose, M. 2010. “Standards, Teaching and Learning.” Phi Delta Kappan 91, no. 4 (January): 21–27.

Sahlberg, P. 2016. “Finnish Schools and the Global Education Reform Movement.” Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground Up. Ed J Evers and R Kneyber. London: Routledge.

Skerrett, A., and A. Hargreaves. 2008. “Student Diversity and Secondary School Change in a Context of Increasingly Standardized Reform.” American Educational Research Journal 45, no. 4: 913–45.

Tröhler, D. 2014. “Change Management in the Governance of Schooling: The Rise of Experts, Planners and Statistics in the Early OECD.” Teachers College Record 116, no. 9 (September): 1–26.

Youngjoo, K. 2010. “The Procrustes’ Bed and Standardization in Education.” Journal of Thought 45 (3–4): 9.