The "More" Child

So education blog doyenne Joanne Jacobs and company have co-authored a report for the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University on “Understanding and Reporting on Academic Rigor.” (.pdf format, published June 2009):

Remember the three Rs? Now there’s a fourth: rigor. It’s the buzzword in education. But translating the rhetoric about rigor into classroom reality is not easy, and it means that journalists need to know more about the new push for rigor. The tension between academic excellence and universal access is as old as American public schools. But today, rigorous schools are touted as a potent force against American industrial decline. Creating these schools is up to school district leaders and their faculty, but journalists should be equally rigorous in their own reporting on this issue.

Wonderful!  Great idea!

Flip through the report.  Whoa!  There on page 2, it’s Jerry Weast’s smiling mug with a pull-quote.  And what does he have to say?

Academic rigor quite simply means giving students a curriculum that will prepare them to succeed in college or the world of work. For us, that means setting a high standard for success and then lining up each grade’s lessons to meet that high standard. We set our sights on the College Board’s Advanced Placement curriculum and then backmapped each grade’s curriculum right down to prekindergarten. So when our 4-year-olds come to us, we can put them on a path to rigor so that when they get to 12th grade, they are ready for calculus or Advanced Placement English, physics, you name it.

Jerry D. Weast, Ed.D., is superintendent of the
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland.

Oh dear.  The irony.  A report calling for rigorous reporting…that doesn’t rigorously check Dr. Weast’s claims.  In point of fact, MCPS curriculum ISN’T backmapped to pre-K from the AP curriculum.  It’s aligned precisely to Maryland’s abysmal state standards.  The math curriculum is a hash. Writing?  Social studies?  Nowheresville.  Moreover, he makes it sound like this rigorous state of affairs has been the case for, like, forever.  The recently rolled out Seven Keys to College Readiness proves otherwise.  And remember…students allegedly need to be above grade level on these keys in order to be “college and work ready” (another trendy buzz phrase).  If your kid has been cruising along at grade level, getting A’s…um…you’re in for a rude awakening.

That said, there’s a lot of great stuff in the report and the page titled “Some Questions to Ask When Reporting on Rigor”  (page 7) is an excellent guide not just for reporters, but for parents.  Read it and start asking those questions!