On Nov. 9 the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) made a presentation to the state legislature’s Elementary and Secondary Education Committee about how standards, curriculum and testing are supposedly created in Kentucky. The presentation was highly problematic.

Two flow charts used in that presentation, "Implementation of New Standards" and the "Academic Standards Development Process" (both appear at the end of this discussion after the “Read more” link is clicked) reveal some very significant problems with the department’s beliefs and attitudes regarding standards-based education systems. Basically, the department’s staff members are seriously misinformed about how high quality standards-based education programs really operate.

Some key revelations found in the KDE’s presentation include the following:

• KDE’s "Implementation of New Standards" flow chart presents a very top-down, dictatorial approach to education standards. This flow chart depicts activity flowing in one direction only.

• KDE’s "Implementation of New Standards" flow chart conveys no understanding that a truly successful environment for education standards includes provision for continuous improvement built around constant feedback and process iteration. The KDE’s flow chart presents standards as rigidly fixed, inflexible and unchangeable -- at least in real time. KDE’s flow chart provides no provision for continuous back-and-forth communication between the standards writers and other key education players such as curriculum writers, classroom teachers and the testing groups. Such feedback is a hallmark of high quality standards-based education systems.

• The KDE “Implementation of New Standards" flow chart seriously misplaces some steps. The flow chart actually calls for teachers to “try out some lessons” before any curriculum work has been conducted. That is just plain wrong. At a minimum, a draft curriculum needs to be developed, first.

• Placing the lesson step before the curriculum development step relates to another issue. Common Core supporters, including some in the KDE, consistently claim that the CCSS are “just standards,” not curriculum. However, if the KDE believes that teachers can directly teach lessons from the Common Core without developing a draft curriculum first, those standards have to be more complete than many Common Core supporters have been claiming. Furthermore, the KDE knows that. KDE cannot have this both ways.

• The “Implementation of New Standards" flow chart never shows how the state’s own assessments fit into the process. That is a glaring oversight. Development of quality state tests cannot be divorced from other elements in the education process such as curriculum and classroom activities.

• The "Academic Standards Development Process" flow chart also highlights an interesting failure in the Common Core State Standards process. The last step in the process calls for “Support Understanding/Implementation for 3-5 Years.” The Common Core process completely violated this important step because the Work Groups that created and understood Common Core were completely disbanded as soon as the standards were released in June 2010. There has been no on-going support for real understanding or implementation of the CCSS from Washington because no organization staffed with experts was left in place to provide it.

For those who are interested, a more detailed discussion of the many problems highlighted by the KDE presentation follows.

Note: If you have the ability to print the flowcharts that appear at the end of this discussion, they will provide a useful reference as you work through the following discussion.

Looking at the KDE’s "Implementation of New Standards" flow chart reveals many issues.

Implementation Issue 1) Notice the total absence of any feedback loops in the process. The lone process arrow goes in only one direction. Furthermore, the process arrow never closes the loop in a full circuit. This flow chart depicts the standards as handed down from on high, presumed perfect and not to be challenged or questioned by curriculum writers, teachers or test creators.

The lack of feedback loops in the KDE’s flow chart seriously violates processes found in high-quality, continuous improvement standards-driven education systems. High quality, standards-based education systems feature and facilitate continuous communication between all the major players in the process, including the standards creators, the curriculum writers, the teachers and the test developers. Feedback exists in high quality standards-based systems because it is recognized that no part of the process can be – or should be expected to be – perfect; some issues will only become apparent when follow-on activities after the standards writing are attempted.

For example, in a high-quality system, if curriculum writers encounter a problem related to the standards, those curriculum writers need an open avenue of communication to the standards writers so the issue can be addressed and rectified. In a similar manner, if teachers encounter problems when they actually bring the curriculum into the classroom, those problems could lie with either the curriculum or even the standards. There needs to be an open communications path for teachers to feed these issues back to the responsible agency so the necessary adjustments can be made.

A similar set of communications pathways is needed by the test writers, as well.

Most importantly, there needs to be recognition that all key participants in the education process can provide valuable input to improve all areas of the process, standards most definitely included. A top-down attitude is foreign to a strong, standards-based education program. In a high-performance standards environment there is no five-to-seven-year waiting period before curriculum writers, teachers and testing groups are allowed to provide input to fix obvious problems with the standards. In high-performance, standards-based education systems, strong feedback loops exist so standards and all other parts of the education process get fixed as soon as a problem is identified and a solution is developed.

Absent feedback, a standards-based system degenerates into a dictatorial, top-down approach that is guaranteed to leave problems unsolved. This in turn limits performance and greatly slows the rate of progress that can be achieved.

Implementation Issue 2) Box #4 is clearly out of sequence. It should follow Box #1. Teachers cannot intelligently start trying out lessons called for in Box #2 before they have at the very least an initial curriculum to work from. Absent at least a draft curriculum, teachers will teach their “try out” lessons in a blind and disjointed way that probably won’t be very useful and that will waste student time.

Implementation Issue 3) Box #2 has another problem. Due to the lack of feedback arrows, the "Revise as needed" comment only covers the lessons in this lone box. In a high-quality, feedback-enabled education system this step would also permit feedback to a (properly placed) curriculum development step and to the standards writers, as well. After all, a problem first identified in the classroom could be caused by deficiencies in the curriculum or the standards, not just in the instruction. There needs to be a way for problems to be communicated to the responsible level where the problem can be rectified.

Implementation Issue 4) Box #3 is problematic. Schools can develop and try out Assessments FOR Learning, but Assessments OF Learning present a more complex issue. While schools can develop tests designated as Assessments OF Learning, the major Assessments OF Learning in Kentucky are the state’s end-of-year tests such as the KPREP tests. Schools cannot control those tests, of course.

As a note, this essential element in the process of implementing new standards, the development and administration of the state’s tests, is not clearly mentioned anywhere in the “Implementation of New Standards” flow chart. Is state assessment creation activity to be covered by the very general Box #5, or does that box only refer to what schools do? The absence of a clear reference to the state’s assessments and how they fit into the standards process is rather astonishing.

In the case of the new Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (KPREP) assessments, not much "trying out" may have been conducted. The KPREP seemed to just launch out-of-the-box in 2011-12 as an accountable set of assessments for schools. If KPREP test writers had much interaction with Kentucky’s curriculum developers and classroom teachers, it certainly was not made apparent to the public. Also, the KPREP test writers could not have had a really meaningful interface with the standards writers because the CCSS Work Groups were disbanded years ago in 2010, well before the KPREP tests came on line.

Implementation Issue 5) Box #3 also suffers from an unclear "Revise as needed" comment. Problems found in testing could be due to: testing, instructing, curriculum or the standards. To reiterate, the one-way direction of the KDE’s flow chart never even contemplates feedback of problems identified during testing to the responsible level for resolution.

Implementation Issue 6) Box #5 also looks out of place. It probably should be placed early in the flow diagram, perhaps behind the properly repositioned curriculum creation step (the repositioned Box #4).

Implementation Issue 7) It is noteworthy that the flow chart ends at Box #6. There is no feedback to the standards creation element, which is missing altogether in the flow chart although it is really the first step in a properly designed, feedback-enabled standards based education program.

The strong implication in KDE’s “Implementation of New Standards” flow chart is that the standards are viewed as handed down from on high as perfect, not to be challenged by curriculum writers, teachers or test creators, at least not in any sort of real time environment. Continuous improvement of the standards is clearly not contemplated in the flow chart.

Looking at the flow chart for the "Academic Standards Development Process:"

Development Issue 1) This flow chart immediately reveals a glaring example of how the CCSS, currently in use in Kentucky, didn't do what even the KDE folks say the standards development process includes. The last step, Box #12, never happened with CCSS because the Common Core Work Groups that created the Core and meaningful support from Washington, DC essentially ended as soon as the standards were published in June 2010.

Development Issue 2) Standards development is also depicted as a linear progression process without any feedback to earlier steps. Human limitations being what they are, well-engineered products are not developed with such non-iterative processes.

Development Issue 3) Another interesting omission in the "Academic Standards Development Process" depiction is the total absence of a selection process for the people who will write the standards.

• How will they be vetted?

• By whom?

• Will a group oversee the writers?

• How will that group be selected?

This is an important oversight in the case of Common Core in Kentucky. Senate Bill 1 from the 2009 Regular Legislative Session required Kentucky’s new education standards to be developed in Kentucky with a collaborative effort of the KDE and the governing group for Kentucky’s public postsecondary institutions, the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE). Common Core was created entirely by Work Groups assembled by two Washington, DC organizations with no responsibility to either the KDE or the CPE. In fact, no member of the Work Groups came from Kentucky. Thus, Common Core’s development may not have complied with Kentucky statute.

Some key questions:

• Is the KDE's "Implementation of New Standards" flow chart just an example of very bad flow chart design grounded in a weak understanding of high-quality standards-based education programs?

• Is there evidence here of an arrogant attitude at the KDE in regard to teachers and other school-level staff? Is it possible the KDE believes that those humble members of the education community cannot be expected to make meaningful suggestions for improvement of standards and don't need to be offered opportunities to do so more than once every five to seven years?

Overall Summation:

The flow charts created by the KDE reveal a serious misunderstanding of how standards are created and supported in a high-quality, continuously improving education system. The flow charts also imply there could be a serious attitude problem at the KDE where feedback from many participants in the process (curriculum writers, teachers and testing agencies) is not even contemplated on more than a very infrequent basis.

This isn’t the way high quality education systems need to operate.

Note: Edit for bullet clarity inserted 30Nov15 at 6:05 pm