THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 4, 1995 TAG: 9504040013
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: By KEITH MONROE
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
An elaborate process by the Allen administration has produced a less than impressive product - new Standards of Learning (SOL) for the public schools in English, social studies, math and science.
The goal was to make greater demands on students, to assure that they were provided with a shared body of knowledge and that a Virginia diploma guaranteed that certain minimum academic criteria had been met.
Those goals are easy to applaud. There's no question intellectual content has in many cases been slighted in favor of ``social'' learning, that trendy material or moldy old chestnuts have been preferred to classics, that cultural literacy has been ignored and the curriculum dumbed down and festooned with irrelevancies.
Yet, considering all the hoopla, the actual SOLs now being proposed are an anticlimax. The math and science requirements are predictably straightforward and uncontroversial. The English and social-studies suggestions are a mixed bag.
In a few places in the lower grades, the expectations seem unrealistic. Fourth-grade social-students are expected to summarize the purpose and contents of the Constitution, the Declaration, the Federalist Papers and other significant documents. One wonders how well the drafters of the SOLs could manage that task.
Eduspeak remains a problem. And though the new SOLs are often more specific than the old, there are still moments of vaporousness. In 10th-grade English, students will be expected to ``critique classical literary works from Antiquity, Early Modern and Modern, and Western and Non-Western cultures.'' In other words, from all times and places. Furthermore, this requirement skates over the question that has vexed academia for a decade - which works are the classics?
An appendix to the English SOLs is intended to provide examples of acceptable readings, but it serves only to suggest the authors don't know a classic when they see one. The only example given for biography is The Bell Jar by a suicidal minor poet but major feminist icon. Is that an example of the best?
The Return of the Native is given as an example of a historical novel. Odd. And the only entry under Sacred Writing is Donne's Meditations - nothing from Islamic, Hindu or other non-Christian traditions. America's greatest poets are conspicuous by their absence. Instead of Whitman, Dickinson or Frost, second-rate, high-school favorites Benet and Sandburg continue to make the cut. Does this constitute higher standards and a return to the classics?
In addition to vagueness and middlebrow taste, there are errors. One social-studies criterion lists Cold War topics to be studied, including the Red Scare. But that episode came in 1920, not after World War II. Elsewhere The Importance of Being Earnest is misspelled Ernest. This is embarrassing.
In fact, all the signs suggest the new SOLs are as much about scoring political points as making educational reforms. Many voters want the schools to go back to the 19th century rather than forward to the 21st century. The bugaboo of multiculturalism has generated more heat than light. And, for some, the schools make handy scapegoats for whatever they think is wrong with the larger society.
By the same token, objections to the new SOLs by teachers and administrators also appear to be politically motivated. A power struggle over who will control the content of education is the context. And many combatants care less about the content than about the power.
Education bureaucrats are wrong to resist constructive changes if the alternative is sticking with an underperforming status quo. Students need to read a lot more about the world and its history. You can't think without facts or write without content. But in this case, the onus was on the critics to come up with real change and a rethinking of the curriculum. Instead, the SOLs that have resulted from a political process show all its earmarks, including compromise and confusion. In fact, they are not all that different from existing standards - more a tinkering around the edges than a revolution.
They certainly don't add up to a comprehensive description of what a high-school graduate ought to know in order to become an educated citizen and to compete in the 21st-century job market. That ought to have been the starting point for the drafting of any new SOLs, not an afterthought.
Critics of the standards claim they will be costly to implement because new texts and tests and teacher training will be needed. It is certainly true that without tests there will be no way to determine if the material is being taught or learned. And accountability for teachers, as for students, is essential.
If the new SOLs were a breakthrough, their cost would be inconsequential. But as Education Secretary Beverly Sgro acknowledges, they are only minimum standards, a floor not a ceiling. She offers assurances that local schools will have wide latitude in deciding what and how to teach within these broad guidelines and that, once the standards are met, additional course work can be required.
In fact, meeting these standards ought not to be difficult and educators who claim the contrary indict themselves, not the SOLs. But for real advocates of reform, it's sad that a process that was supposed to result in a thorough re-examination of school content has actually produced so little. The problem with the proposed SOLs is not that they go too far, but that they don't go far enough. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star.
by CNB