By Arthur H. Camins
Physics teaches us that speed, acceleration, direction of movement, and time are all relative to a reference point. This principle, related to objects and motion, is worth considering as a metaphor for education policy. It is particularly poignant in thinking about the promise and challenges of the National Research Council?s framework for K-12 science education and the just-released draft of the voluntary Next Generation Science Standards , or NGSS.
The metaphor struck me while riding the train to work recently. Glancing to my right at the passing scenery, I was confident that my train was rapidly moving toward my destination. But then, I experienced a moment of perturbation. My attention was drawn to my left with the passage of a faster train headed in the same direction. Suddenly, I had the brief sense of moving backward. Relative to the station I left behind, I was still making progress. However, relative to the faster-moving train, I was losing ground.
As a nation, we remain highly focused on performance on current high-stakes accountability tests. For the most part, they tend to measure progress with respect to what is behind us: mastery of a fixed body of information that is easily tested. Even growth measures are about increasing the distance from the past, i.e., prior achievement levels. The higher the stakes, the more we tend to look over our shoulders and the more we fail to look ahead to new destinations, or even to notice whether those moving more quickly are using...
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