Got rigor? Michigan does not apparently. We took a “D” on the chin from the Fordham Institute.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute released a report on Wednesday (July 21) ranking the state standards in English language arts and math according to rigor and clarity. The New York Times used the occasion to report that 27 states had already adopted the Common Core Standards and that even Massachusetts, the gold standard of standards, would soon adopt the Common Core. The Times concluded its lead article quoting conflicting claims about which standards were more “rigorous,”  the Massachusetts document or the Common Core.

Yet unexamined are the reasons the Fordham Institute found the standards  of 39 states in English language arts and the standards of 37 states in math less “clear and rigorous” than the national standards. Educators and concerned citizens should challenge the assumption that a conservative think tank might control the discussion of whose standards are more rigorous, yours or mine.

For some reason the word “rigor” has become the supreme value in describing educational standards, this despite the leading synonyms  in the dictionary entry are “strictness,” “severity,” and “harshness” and the derivation from the Latin meaning “stiffness” (Webster’s Unabridged, 2003).  These are words we could approve in the quality control of prescription drugs and fire extinguishers, but in the evaluation of the learning of human beings?

At the same time “rigorous” in casual conversation might mean “challenging,” and no one would object to “challenging” educational standards.  No doubt this is the sense the Fordham Institute intended to convey in its press release. However, if you study their critique of state standards, you find the operational meaning of “rigorous,” is “measurable.” “Rigorous” and “measurable” do not belong in the same sentence, not even this one.

Hoping not to take its assessment personally, I’ll review what Fordham has to say about the Michigan High School writing “standards” (We call them “Content Expectations”).

The author of the Fordham critique, Sheila Byrd Carmichael (founder of the American Diploma Project) writes,

In high school, writing is addressed in a strand called, Writing, Speaking and Visual Expression. Explicit writing expectations are often missing. One unmeasurable “writing attitude” standard is included; it simply exhorts students at each level from K-8 to “be enthusiastic about writing and learning to write”

The ultimate criticism of  the “rigor” of the standard is it is “unmeasurable” ( a word my spell-checker and Webster’s rejects). Because we don’t have standardized tests to measure “writing attitude,” it must lack rigor as a standard. As a writing teacher, I can assure anyone who cares to listen that “attitude” is supremely important in writing, whether I can objectively measure it or not.

Ms. Carmichael reserves her strongest criticism for what she call’s Michigan’s “hybrid” standards for writing. Such standards offend by mentioning a variety of genres or purposes of writing in the same statement. Here is the standard singled out for being “devoid of content.”

Compose written, spoken, and/ or multimedia compositions in a range of genres (e.g. personal narrative, fiction, biography, essay, poem, drama, autobiography, and creative nonfiction); that serve a variety of purposes (e.g. expressive, informative, creative, and persuasive) and that use a variety of organizational  patterns (e.g. autobiography, free verse, dialogue, comparison/ contrast, definition, or cause and effect).

The least problem of a standard listing seven genres, four purposes, and six “organizational patterns” is a lack of “content.”  There is plenty of that.  What is lacking is “measurable” content, a single genre that could be tested on its own. Ms. Carmichael recommends, “It would be far more helpful to teachers to describe the expected characteristics of each genre listed, and to state which genres are most appropriate for study at each grade level.”

Presumably Ms. Carmichael admires the way the Common Core Standards list “argument” as a primary “text type” of the study of writing and then adds five traits or “outcomes” that delineate a good argument. Perhaps she is less pleased that the same three text types (“argument,” informative/explanatory,” and “narrative”) are addressed in each grade, 9-12, in the Common Core, because it does not “state which genres are most appropriate for study at each grade level.”  To this I say “bravo” to the Common Core Standards, because they  make very little differentiation of genres and outcomes over the four grades of high school, just as the Michigan standards for writing do not isolate one high school grade from the others. They acknowledge that the challenging kinds of argumentative, expository and expressive writing taught in high school require (4) years of practice and increasing sophistication of content. It is a rigorous program, even though it does not isolate one kind of writing from another by grade level.

Returning to Michigan’s “hybrid” standard: “Compose written, spoken, and/ or multimedia compositions in a range of genres (e.g. personal narrative, fiction, biography, essay, poem, drama, autobiography,and creative nonfiction); etc.” The intent is clearly to advocate a “range of genres” instead of limiting the curriculum to single genre in each grade. Could this be less “rigorous” than addressing one particular genre in each grade? Could this be less “rigorous” than denying the writer the power to find the best genre for the message she wants to convey?  Less rigorous than never experimenting with alternative genres to convey that message?

Of course these are rigorous challenges for writers,  but with so many genres in play, how will we measure the accomplishment of this standard? (Ms. Carmichael will be asking). And yet such a “hybrid” standard could be evaluated by a portfolio of writing in several genres. No doubt the Michigan standards writers had this in mind. Doubtless Ms. Carmichael could not have a portfolio assessment in mind, if she calls this standard “devoid of content.”

When the Fordham Institute claims that standards lack “clarity” or “rigor” or are “unmeasurable” or  “devoid of content,” the media and educators should be furiously decoding their messages. Chester Finn and his colleagues should not be allowed to control the conversation about standards, just because they have assumed the tedious task of reviewing all the standards of all the grades in all the states. Just because their dream of national standards has come to pass does not mean we have to fulfill it in every detail.

My dictionary accepts only  “immeasurable,” but I won’t be “rigorous” about it.

All citations from “Michigan” at  http://edexcellence.net/index.cfm/news_the-state-of-state-standards-and-the-common-core-in-2010