Editor’s note: The following piece is shared with TIRF Today readers by Jackie Kerstetter, who is the Director of Communications for the Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL), as well as the founder of Alessi Communication & Design Co., which specializes in education policy and research outreach.
For as long as the United States has been engaged in standards-based education reform, we have achieved only modest gains and failed to close the achievement gap. Researchers point to a number of flaws in both design and implementation that have undermined the ideals of standards-based reform. These challenges include poor-quality content standards with unclear language, poor-quality and poorly aligned assessments, flawed school accountability metrics, and inadequate supporting materials, including textbooks and professional development. In short, the vision of standards-based reform as laid out by its earliest advocates has not been realized. As states embark on implementation of new college- and career-readiness standards, including the Common Core State Standards, it is more crucial than ever to understand what is required for effective standards implementation and positive outcomes for all students.
To this end, the Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn) examines how college- and career-readiness standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. The Center’s work focuses especially on the experience of English language learners (ELLs), led by Penn Professor Dr. Nelson Flores (who was a co-recipient of TIRF’s 2019 Alatis Prize), and students with disabilities (SWDs), led by Drs. Doug and Lynn Fuchs (Vanderbilt).
Funded through a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, C-SAIL is directed by Dr. Andy Porter (Penn), and comprises a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, American Institutes for Research, and Vanderbilt University. The Center uses the policy attributes theory as a guiding framework, positing that successful policies share five features: specificity, consistency, authority, power, and stability.
“Policymakers at the federal, state and local levels can talk about — and tweak—testing policy all they want,” says Porter. “But until we provide teachers with meaningful instructional support that aligns with the challenging new standards states have adopted, students will not develop the critical thinking and problem-solving skills they need to thrive,” he adds.
C-SAIL’s Feedback on Alignment and Support for Teachers (FAST) program is designed to bring standards into the classroom in powerful ways that directly support teacher implementation. Using a personalized online dashboard and virtual access to instructional coaches, the FAST Program provides real-time feedback to teachers on the alignment of their instruction to their state standards and offers instructional support for improving their alignment. The FAST Program will be free for schools upon completion of the Center (2020).
To generate a more complete picture of how states are implementing new English language arts and math standards, C-SAIL has partnered with California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas to compare and contrast their approaches to implementation. The geographically diverse states represent a range of policies and characteristics including the adoption of both Common Core and non-Common Core state standards; use of Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), Smarter-Balanced, and other assessments; and differing concentrations of English language learners.
To estimate the effects of states’ adoption and implementation of college- and career-readiness standards and aligned assessments on student outcomes, C-SAIL is analyzing National Assessment of Educational Progress data, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment rates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Also, C-SAIL has created a series of interactive maps to generate a snapshot of standards-based reform across the country.
C-SAIL’s research findings are available in full-length publications as well as briefs and other short resources. The Center also hosts a blog featuring the insights of our research team as well as experts in, and practitioners of, standards-based reform.
