Standards-Based Education
By: Liz Roccaro
History of Reform
Standards-Based Education Reform began in 1983. Standards-Based Education Reform was adopted as systems of instruciton, assesment, grading, and academic reporting that are based on students demonstrating understanding or mastery of the knowledge and skills they are expected to learn as they progress through their education. SBE Reform requirements have changed since it was introduced and accordingly, the test content requires continuous review and updating.
Advantages and Disadvantages of SBE Reform
Some advantages that have come from the reform are that it helped all students learn more by demanding higher student proficiency and providing effective methods to help students achieve high standards, focused the education system on understandable, objective, measurable, and well-defined goals to enable schools to work smarter and more productively, and provide real accountability by focusing squarely on results and helping the public and local and state educators evaluate which programs work best. Some disadvantages of the SBE Reform would be vague and unclear standards in several subject areas in several states complicate matters and do not serve as concrete standards defining what students should know and be able to do and top-down standards imposed by the federal or state government are also problematic, they impose content specifications without taking into account the different needs, opportunities to learn, and skills that may be appropriate for specific districts or regions.