Lowering standards won't help students

If you'll remember, not too long ago there were some officials in Missouri public education who floated the idea that the way we measure student testing might be flawed. The fact of the matter is those officials wanted to lower the testing standard and thereby allow more students to fall into the proficient category. They had ample arguments to justify their thinking.

Well now the Secretary of Education Rod Paige has issued a stern warning to school districts nationwide not to lower their academic standards. Those who do are "the enemies of justice and equal opportunity."

Hurrah for Paige!

For starters there are way too many ways in this country that we measure student success or failure. The fact is that our education standards have indeed been lowered to accommodate more students in our zeal to leave none behind. But then we find when these students enter the "real world" they are woefully unable to cope or achieve success. That's the bottom line to lowering our standards.

For example, here's how far apart we are in this country on measuring schools. In Texas, with 4.1 million public education students, only 46 schools are identified as underperforming. In Michigan, with only 1.7 million students, there are 1,513 underperforming schools. Though there are federal laws, there are state standards. And they vary greatly.

Declining student achievement often translates into less federal education dollars. Schools are terrified of that loss of revenue and so they fudge. But then the students actually lose.

We need to hold all students to a high achievement standard and we need to recognize that some students will never perform at that level. But the last thing we should do is to lower those standards to accommodate the underperformers at the expense of the overachievers.