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The Iowa Core Curriculum May Not Be Perfect, But It’s More Rigorous That What We’ve Had

by John on 20/04/10 at 11:21 am

There is a race for governor going on in Iowa this year. Earlier this week one of the men who is vying for the Republican nomination, Bob Vander Plaats, stated that if he’s elected he would free Iowa schools from “senseless mandates” and kill the Iowa Core Curriculum (ICC) project.

This is good political hay for Mr. Vander Plaats, a former business teacher and school principal, because it appeals Iowans’ strong belief in local control of schools.

But is it good for children?

Dumping the ICC might be a plausible idea if we knew more about what Mr. Vander Plaats had in mind once he dumped it.  He says that he will push for higher standards that are promulgated at the local level.

Risk of Moving Down the Scale

The problem is that if Mr. Vander Plaats does away with the ICC, how will school boards ensure students in Iowa would be learning at the highest levels of Blooms Taxonomy?  What’s Bloom’s Taxonomy?  Mary Forehand describes it as a tiered model of classifying thinking, and in the case of schools, student thinking.  The higher up the taxonomy one goes, the “better” the thinking that occurs.  Think of it as a way to assess how rigorous an activity is and how much cognitive effort a student is putting into that activity. So, in Bloom’s Taxonomy, learning facts is at the bottom (“remembering”). “Understanding” is next to the bottom. “Evaluating” what you remember and understand, and “creating” new knowledge are the top. If a child can operate at the top of the taxonomy, it’s assumed they also do everything else below it. But if all a child is taught is to remember what they’re told, there’s no guarantee they can “apply”, “analyze”, “evaluate”, or “create.”  In sum, if you teach at the highest level of the scale then you’ve covered the rest.

Right now, in Iowa, the current standards are at the low levels of the scale.

How Does the ICC Compare to What We Have Now (and to Other States)?

A research team from Iowa School Boards Foundation analyzed the state curricula of several states that were strong in improving achievement and closing gaps between high and low achieving students (Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Virginia). They assessed the rigor of the curricula of those states according to Bloom’s Taxonomy.  The team also analyzed the rigor of the current Iowa Standards and the future ICC according to Bloom’s Taxonomy.

What did they find?

The ICC is significantly more rigorous than the current Iowa Standards. Further, the ICC is roughly as rigorous as the state standards of the states they identified as strong in improving achievement and closing gaps.

What’s most frightening to me is that the neither the math nor literacy standards that Iowa currently expects of its students call for learning that is considered to be in any the top three tiers of Bloom’s Taxonomy.  Conversely, the forthcoming ICC adds a significant amount of material that addresses higher order thinking.

Fair to Districts?

It could be the case that dumping the ICC puts an undue burden on local school boards to develop and adopt rigorous curricula and not benefit from the economies of scale that a rigorous, well-research curriculum could bring. Worse yet, districts may do nothing and revert to relying on the current Iowa Standards.  Local control is important, yes. But district viability in Iowa is not a constant.  Many rural communities are struggling. With 360 school districts currently in place, 360 sets of standards doesn’t seem viable nor fair. Iowa is in the center of a world that is changing around it. Parents deserve to know that the curriculum their children learn from is rigorous, just and fair. Returning to current standards does not seem viable.

[Chart source: Iowa School Boards Foundation]
[Photo CC via Flickr user Divergent Learner]