Posted by: Judith Fonzi Posted on: May 16, 2001 at 12:03 PM Message: It seems to me that we need to consider all three groups of standards when measuring success. The trick is how to do so. In our work we have tried to consider this question from the very initial conception of the project. Using NSF's standards as the basic frame and non-negotiable elements of the project we sought participation by districts. The district standards, which we have been cognizant of throughout our on-going development and implementation of the project, proved to be a bit more nebulous. Districts tend to change their minds about what they need/want - or what standards they are going to measure success by - as new regulations or innovations come along (oftentimes during the implementation of existing projects). As a result we have been in constant communications and collaborations with our district officals in order to "learn" of their current desires so that we can adapt our work in such a way to address their needs without compromising the orignal intentions of the project, i.e., to improve mathematics programs for all kids in the district. The project participants standards have remained fairly stable. Their measures are indeed as Cuban has suggested " students' acquiring certain attitutdes, values, and their display of actual behavior on both academic and nonacademic tasks in and out of the classroom". For us the trick has been how to help participants reconcile their measures and the districts measures without having the participants resort to teaching to the test (since test scores tend to be one of the stable district level standards and also tend to be one of the least predictable outcomes in the earliest years of reform). I would argue that there is another group whose standards have carried an extraordinary amount of weight in the "sustainablility" efforts -- parents. Parents have been able to "kill" reform efforts as well as "keep" them. It seems to me that we all need to take this group much more seriously than we have been. It's not enough to keep parents informed it is critical to keep them actively engaged in the work of reform. We have learned that parents (as a constituency) need to be included as key players from the initial conception of a project -- the challenge for us is how to do so !