If you're trying to win teacher support for standards-based education, what is your best selling point? According to Elliott Asp of the Douglas County (Colo.) Schools, it's the role that standards can play in promoting "student ownership and understanding of learning."
Elliott Asp
Even if teachers think that most of the standards movement is "a lot of hooey," Asp said, they welcome the idea that, as a result of standards, students would clearly understand what they are expected to know and be able to do. Ideally, he explained, students in a standards-based environment "could articulate in specific terms what they need to do to reach these standards, and they'd also be able to describe where they [currently] are in relation to the standards and what they need to do to improve."
When presented with this vision of standards-based education, teachers exclaim, "Hallelujah! If I had students who could do that, life would be great!" Asp said. However, that vision is still far from reality. Today, most teachers report that their students' focus is on "the current [learning] activity" and whether they like it or find it boring, rather than on how well they are learning the knowledge and skills they need to acquire, he noted.
Given that reality, teachers are tantalized by the prospect that students could become more invested in monitoring their own learning. Through standards, "we're trying to move kids to a place where they're not just along for the ride," Asp said.