"Too few students are leaving the K-12 system ready for college and the global economy, yet the public appears to fear an overemphasis on test scores and a decrease in attention paid to the whole child." This problem is the subject of a new Education Commission of the States (ECS) briefing memo, one in a series titled "Setting the '08 Education Agenda for the Nation."

Benchmarking to International Standards While Protecting the Public's Traditional Commitment to a Comprehensive Education, points to policy issues of maintaining local control while voluntarily adopting national standards.

"What results do we want?" asks the briefing:

• Fewer, deeper standard
• A realistic picture of how all 15-year-olds perform on the PISA exam, even though this might cause outrage about how low scores might be. Complacencywill get us nowhere
• A far greater number of students who gain and can apply knowledge and skills at a higher level
• Graduates who are capable of producing new knowledge in a global society
• Graduates who employ transferable skills in an economy where career paths are constantly changing
• Teachers with a good grasp of clear, ambitious targets and who can inspire, motivate and help students meet those targets
• Students who work hard and understand the big ideas behind the algorithms
• Communities and individuals who have the knowledge, skills and dispositions to support a common good.

What components of quality policies could address these questions?

• Voluntary state adoption of internationally benchmarked standards
• Clear common denominators for teachers to teach
• Support for ongoing, embedded, individualized professional development
• Incentives to attract the top third of high school students to apply to teacher preparation programs
• System-wide alignment (preschool, elementary, secondary, university)
• Inclusion of 21st-century skills and civic education
• Alignment of support systems for students
• Understandable metrics for evaluation.

Source: ECS Briefing Memo