Abstract:

Bill Ferriter, a North Carolina NBCT, says that “despite frequent repetition of terms and ideas, Taming the Standards is an important contribution to the current discussion on standards-based planning.” Hurt explains umbrella concepts for looking at state standards.

Citation: Hurt, J. (2003). Taming the standards: A commonsense approach to higher student achievement, K-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Full Text:

by Janet Hurt
2003 (136 pp./paperback)
Heinemann Publishers
ISBN: 0-325-00592-3
Price: $13.50 (online)

Reviewed by Bill Ferriter
Dillard Drive Middle School
Raleigh, North Carolina

In the "accountability-crazed" world that we live and work in, teachers face immense pressures to produce student success. But what does that mean? What types of gains do parents, community members and State Departments of Education expect from the children in our care, and how do we, as teachers, generate results?

Most states have adopted some form of "high-stakes testing" to evaluate the performance of both students and teachers. Having established state standards for curricular study and growth at every grade level, educational leaders view testing as a concrete method of monitoring student performance. "Teaching to the test," regardless of the consequence, has become a common practice in many classrooms across our country as schools and teachers look to avoid being labeled "underachieving."

With a firm understanding of this reality, Janet Hurt, a former principal, has written Taming the Standards: A commonsense approach to higher student achievement, K-12 to help teachers and school systems effectively address the expectations set by State Departments of Education. Recognizing that demands for accountability are not going away, Hurt's text provides a framework for examining state standards and implementing integrated instruction across content areas and grade levels designed towards increasing student achievement.

Hurt, now an associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction in Logan County, KY, contends that in the American schoolhouse, "there is a tendency to design lessons in isolation, to use a textbook or other resources as the pathway (for instruction) rather than the standards, to design the lessons and then search for standards that match." With a lack of planning time and "know-how," teachers and schools are giving little consideration to the very expectations that they are being held accountable for. Her goal in writing Taming the Standards is to reverse this approach to instruction by providing teachers with a working knowledge of, and vocabulary for, standards-based planning.

Hurt begins her examination of standards-based planning by defining and helping teachers to recognize "Umbrella Concepts" that are found in state standards. These are concepts like change, relationships or movement that relate across curricular areas and have no specific content. Umbrella concepts should, according to the author, provide the driving force for integration among content areas and form the foundation of long-term unit instruction.

After defining many other terms, including content-specific concepts, threads, and essential learnings, Hurt moves into an explanation of the process teachers and schools should use to examine their state educational standards. She discusses the bundling and cross-bundling of standards. This process of "placing standards" under previously identified umbrella concepts "provides natural connections to the standards. This raises the bar and propels students towards making connections to higher-order thinking and conceptual learning." It also helps teachers to identify curricular links and integrate seamlessly across content areas. Horizontal Alignment (placing standards in a sequence that is appropriate for students in a given grade level) and Vertical Alignment (intentionally placing standards at the developmentally appropriate grade level) are also defined and discussed.

Hurt uses the remainder of her text to examine the selection of topics for instruction as well as the planning process that teachers should use when implementing standards-based units. She examines the use of questioning for direction setting, and defines the terms umbrella questions, essential questions, and guiding questions. Skeleton units are then explained, as are learning links and persistent explorations. Planning outlines, strategy tracking charts, and standard tracking formats are all provided for easy implementation.

Hurt finishes with a caution regarding staff development opportunities currently being offered in the area of standards-based instruction. She contends that while many professional presenters in the area of standards-based planning offer to bring pre-determined umbrella concepts to schools and counties, "only practicing teachers" have the ability to identify these foundational concepts for their schools and to effectively organize instruction.

"Workshop facilitators do not know what your students have previously addressed, at what levels the standards have been addressed, and what the school's comprehensive plan has identified through school data analysis as areas for growth," she writes. Without this knowledge of student strengths and weaknesses within a particular school community, efficient planning and direction setting is impossible.

Despite frequent repetition of terms and ideas, Taming the Standards is an important contribution to the current discussion on standards-based planning. By seeking to create a common working vocabulary and procedure for examining state standards, Hurt has taken the mystery out of the process for classroom teachers and administrators. Its concise format and concrete examples make this oft-imposing topic understandable.

With careful examination and application of the steps proposed in Taming, schools can assure themselves that efficient, integrated instruction will be occur across grade levels and content areas. This increased efficiency is the key to increasing productivity and student achievement in the American classroom.

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