SMHC

In the most recent issue of The Doyle Report, Denis Doyle offers suggestions for how to turn our words into actions – specifically, how to actually race to the top. Doyle’s first suggestion is to immediately establish voluntary standards in ELA, mathematics, the physical and biological sciences, history and social sciences, second languages and the plastic and performing arts. These standards will encourage a ubiquitous understanding of what it means to be prepared for life after high school. Doyle also purports that these standards should function as benchmarks against which states’ measure their performance domestically and internationally. Further, Doyle advocates that these standards be voluntary. He argues that voluntary standards will help enhance the responsibility a state feels to improving student achievement, by focusing public scrutiny on the state itself and removing the federal government as a middleman to absorb public approval or disapproval. Doyle’s second suggestion is to make national summative and formative examinations a requisite for federal aid. Again, Doyle emphasizes the influence of publicizing information on state behavior. He writes, “Public posting of school scores should exert enough pressure on schools to measure up; if not, we can up the ante at a later date.”

Doyle’s final suggestion is to equip schools with the technology they need to track student performance over time. SMHC previously wrote about the importance of data systems to teacher quality. The ability to track student performance over time has been recognized as integral to enhancing teachers’ capacities to diagnose students’ needs and measure student success.

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