STANDARDS: THE STATES GO THEIR OWN WAYS

By JAMES COLLINS

President Clinton thought he had a winner in his back-to-school-season campaign to create national academic standards. But his effort has not fared too well. The voluntary tests he proposed met with strong criticism from conservatives, who argued that they would bring too much federal control over education, and the proposal is now languishing in a congressional committee. In a sense, though, the fate of Clinton's initiative may be largely irrelevant because the question of standards is being vigorously addressed by the states themselves.

Inspired in part by an education summit that took place in May last year, 44 states are revising their standards, and five more are writing them for the first time (Iowa is the lone holdout). The term standards in this case refers to something quite specific: official, written guidelines that define what a state expects its public school students to know and be able to do. Some states have set standards for every grade; others measure students' progress over periods of several years.

The argument for academic standards is simple: as in any other endeavor, the people engaged in education need clear goals and a way to determine whether those goals have been met. "When you put rigorous standards in place," says Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, "it helps parents, teachers and students to know what the expectations are, and it helps measure whether students are meeting those expectations. This is a method of knowing whether children are learning what they need to be learning at a certain age."

In order for standards to improve schools, say proponents, three conditions must be met: the standards themselves must be explicit; students must be tested on whether they have met them; and finally, schools and students alike must be held accountable when they fall short of expectations. Among the states, however, the quality of standards varies widely: some are so vague that they can hardly be considered standards at all, while others are highly specific. The accompanying map shows which states so far, in the view of the AFT, have written strong standards and which have not. Most states assess their students' achievements with tests, but using the results to actually improve quality is often difficult. Only a few states impose sanctions on underperforming schools and students. One place accountability has been established is Virginia, where last month Governor George Allen announced that any school with a pass rate of less than 70% will lose its accreditation.

Clinton may get the national standards he wants without even trying. Patty Sullivan, director of education legislation at the National Governors' Association, reports, "Every state that begins working on standards calls and says, 'Which are the states with the best standards? Can you send a copy to us?'" The end result, Sullivan predicts, will be that "you'll find they aren't that different" from state to state. When all 49 of these states are finished developing their standards, the country may end up eating its cake and having it too: de facto national standards created by the individual states.

--By James Collins. Reported by Chandrani Ghosh/Washington

With reporting by CHANDRANI GHOSH/WASHINGTON