Education systems throughout the world have applied a range of mechanisms designed to effect educational reforms. At no time has this endeavour been more pressing than the present, with the global pressures of competition, political instability, and social and economic insecurity. Rapidly changing workplace demands brought about by technological advances place ever increasing demands on educators to prepare youth with skills and capacities to traverse future unknown territory.
Standards provide one such mechanism designed to generate and ensure improvement, not only in educational outcomes and the processes and practices of those charged with effecting these outcomes - teachers and school leader, but also in the quality of preparation programs offered by tertiary institutions. The argument for standards-based reform is illustrated by three assumptions: first, that student performance improves when the outcomes of learning are made explicit; second, teachers' performance improves when practices of teaching are made explicit; and third; school performance improves when the practices of leaders are made explicit. In Australia, for instance, standards were seen to be the mechanism, not only to improve teaching and learning of Science, but also to ‘revitalise the teaching profession’ (Ingvarson & Semple, 2006). More recently, standards for digital technologies are described as ‘an evolution in education’ with a promise to empower ‘learning and the teaching profession’ (Smith, 2017).
Which of these assumptions are realistic? Which of the 'promises' can be guaranteed, theoretically and in practice?
This paper provides an overview of the author's reflections on 25 years of research, teaching and practice with Standards, highlighting strengths and ongoing challenges for designers, practitioners and policy makers. Particularly in relation to standards for school leaders and professional standards for teachers, three questions are posed:
1. what counts as evidence of meeting the Standards?
2. how much evidence is enough to demonstrate that the Standards have been met? and
3. is the successful application of Standards a matter of Art? Science? or wishful thinking?
Reviews of the standards movement show it was in its infancy in the 1990s and its influence continue to be experienced for the next quarter of a century.
However, there appears to remain a mis-use of the commonly understood term 'standard'. What standard is implied by Standards: a minimum requirement or an aspirational level of performance?; a local, national or international benchmark? The ‘standard’ as a level of performance has a different meaning from the concept of Standards, and yet they are used interchangeably in practice. Is 'meeting 'the standard' the sum of performing at some identified level on each of the Standards, or elements of the list of behaviours?