Challenges with Integrating Standards in Education

In recent years many states have dispatched new versions of curriculum documents and a lot of work has been done to clean up and more clearly articulate Standards.

Despite these efforts and a general sameness regardless of geographic location, some challenges with standards remain.

• Quality can vary between regions.
• Unclear or vague.
  
• A disciplinary aspect of standards can encourage segregation and/or hierarchy between subject areas.
• Often too many standards for one given level of instruction.
• Some standards may not be worth achieving and can be irrelevant.
  

Another issue with the standards is that they are often used to put pressure on a school to perform, thus creating a school culture that gravitates around the “teach to the test” approach. This can imply hungry brains of learners left with plates of facts and rote memory skills, while teachers can perceive their role as unmotivating and “covering” of standards.

From Professional Learning Board’s online continuing education course for teachers: Integrating Standards in Teaching