THE BASIC test of any exam for Arkansas’ students is whether a parent, teacher, or concerned citizen can see at a glance how this state ranks nationally. For why have a race to the top if Arkansas’ team is the only one circling the track? It’s not immediately clear if updated standards for English/Language Arts coming this fall meet that essential test: to provide a basis of comparison with other states’ performance. Which means that these latest standards for our schools merit only an Incomplete at best. But if that’s disappointing news, just wait’ll next year, when doubtless the standards will be revised still again. School standards in this state can be as changeable as its weather.
The good news is that these new standards are only a beginning, a basis on which to build rather than the finished edifice. For education is always a work in progress—or regress—and Arkansas is definitely making progress toward a Common Core curriculum for all its students. Consider just a couple of the improvements included in these latest standards: Cursive handwriting is now to be taught once again. So will phonics. It’s good to see at least two of the three Rs—readin’ and writin’—making a comeback. How long before McGuffey’s Reader is brought back, too? Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better.
But it’s disturbing to see that the selection of literature that students are to read is to be left to the individual school districts and, within those, to Classroom Decision Makers. (When did teachers become “classroom decision makers”? Or will the decision on which books to read be left to yet another administrator at central offices looking to keep busy?) Why have a Common Core if not all students have certain books in common? And so will recognize references to them whether they go to school in Fayetteville or Lake Village, Blytheville or Fort Smith. For a common literature is one of the things that bind a people together, and promote a more perfect union, for we are all People of the Book if we’ve read the same book. How claim to be literate in English if, say, Shakespeare and the King James Bible are uncharted territory?
Happily, the newest standards are much more user-friendly than some of the old ones have been, or so it’s said. They come complete with helpful notes for teachers, lots of them. Listen to what Kiffany Pride of the Pulaski County Special School District has to say about the newest revised standards. Her specialty is literacy, so she ought to be able to tell quality in education when she sees it. “We are going to fully implement [the new standards] this year,” she says. “We are excited about them. We feel they are comprehensive and fit the needs of our teachers and students.”
There’s no substitute for an enthusiastic teacher, and no one can be more enthusiastic than a teacher at the beginning of a new school yearbefore the new wears off and rigor is replaced by routine. Learning should never be routine, and one good thing about the newest standards is that, well, they’re new. For a change can be as good as a rest. Especially if it represents a new challenge.
TEACHERS, like students or anyone else, can and should relish a challenge, just as an explorer is reinvigorated when setting out for lands unknown. Even teachers and administrators in school districts where cursive is already being taught should be heartened by having their good judgment confirmed by these latest standards. “We knew we were already covered in that area,” says Ms. Pride, “but we are excited to see it in the standards.” Excitement about one’s calling needs to be regularly refreshed. Which is one requirement that these latest standards may indeed meet.
Stacy Smith, the state Education Department’s assistant commissioner of learning services, notes that these latest “standards are what we expect all teachers to teach in the classroom. But they are not the ceiling. They are the base.” They’re a new beginning, not the same old end.
There was a time when folks in Arkansas would say Thank God for Mississippi, for it was the only state that ranked lower in the national ratings than we did. But those times are past. Or need to be if Arkansas is going to set the pace not just for our neighboring states but for the nation. And we can.