2012 Brown Center Report on American Education

The Brookings Institute has released the 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education (click here to read).   The report has studied state standards for a number of years, and it has determined through statistical analysis that …

1) The quality of state standards, as indicated by the well-known ratings from the Fordham Foundation, is not related to state achievement.
 2) The rigor of state standards, as measured by how high states place the cut point for students to be deemed proficient, is also unrelated to achievement. Raising or lowering the cut point is related to achievement in fourth grade, but the effect is small, and the direction of causality (whether a change in cut point produces a change in test score or vice versa) is difficult to determine.
 3) The ability of standards to reduce variation in achievement, in other words to reduce differences in achievement, is also weak.

It kind of makes sense to me.  Just establishing the bar very high doesn’t mean much.  It’s the effort made during the journey to reach the goals that is critically important, and states and districts have to deploy needed resources to help students obtain proficiency at high levels (not just rely on "tough" standards).  The needed resources in the classroom may be teacher quality, curriculum supplies/materials or infrastructure, but they also may be related to those things outside the realm or control of the schoolhouse (e.g., dealing with poverty).