Standards have created a kind of vacuum, said Hayes Mizell, director of the program for student achievement at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, in his closing luncheon address. "In the main, this vacuum is being filled by tests—obsessions about tests, preparation for tests, and fears of test results," he said. "So long as teachers are ambivalent toward standards and passive about them as a catalyst to improve instruction, tests and accountability will fill the vacuum."
Hayes Mizell
This does not have to be the case, Mizell contended. "When teachers take action by using standards to focus on improving their performance and that of their students, they shift the focus of standards from testing to learning, from accountability to responsibility, and from obligation to opportunity."
Standards hold the potential to provoke teachers into demanding the staff development they need to help their students perform to meet the standard, Mizell said. "To seize this opportunity, teachers must become aggressive advocates for the high-quality professional development that continues to be the exception rather than the rule," he urged. "Though teachers can shape their own staff development destinies, too many lack the will or self-confidence to do so." Until school systems, principals, and unions expect all teachers to seek—and apply—the kind of professional development they need to deliver effective standards-based instruction, there is little hope that nearly all students will perform at standard, he said.
Current standards are far from perfect, Mizell acknowledged, but they do constitute an essential step toward improving the performance of all students. "While the current standards movement is a long way from eliminating the variations in what all students are taught and how well they must perform to demonstrate their understanding of subject content, we are certainly closer to that ideal than ever before," he said. "Much work lies ahead, but clearly the challenge is to seize the opportunities that standards present rather than to resist, dilute, or ignore standards."