Rigor: Effect on Schooling

Dounay, Jennifer: “Ensuring Rigor in the High School Curriculum: What States are Doing” Pg.6 Feb. 4, 2004. Education commission of the states, web. Feb. 11, 2011

              "While truth-in-labeling practices in the food industry ensure that orange drink cannot be labeled orange juice without legal ramifications, schools have no such safeguards in place. Algebra I can be placed on any child’s transcript without any guarantee about the content taught or learned.” (Jean Rutherford). Jennifer Dounay uses this quotation in an attempt to illustrate the importance of rigor in schooling, not only ensuring education curriculums are more challenging, but also to make sure that when there is more challenging content, it is recorded and taught correctly. Throughout her article she speaks of specific states where there is an obvious lack of students really learning the content, and the statistics proving that. I want to give just one example to illustrate her point, “At ECS’ National Forum on Education Policy last July, Jean Rutherford of the National Center for Educational Accountability reported that in Texas, 57% of Hispanics, 65% of African Americans and 60% of low-income students who had credit on their transcripts for both geometry and Algebra II failed the state test covering Algebra I.”(Dounay) She continues to give numerous examples in different states and subject types that have similar results. There are a couple of important attempts put in place to attempt to fine tune the rigor for students who might be at different levels of understanding. Dounay speaks to the importance of diagnostic exams given to students. These exams are intended to help a teacher gain a general comprehension of where her students are at, and thus can more effectively design a class to help those who might be behind, and challenge those who are on track.

         With speaking in reference to rigor, what it is and it’s importance to students, Dounay pushes a great point with ample data to back up her assessment. We all know that the more difficult a task is, when it is accomplished it can be very rewarding. I have covered multiple sources and resources attempting to find what is the center for, what I feel is a failing education system in the broad scope of our nation. While I don’t feel this is the only issue that we need to try to address in an attempt to make learning and teaching more effective it does hold great value. So no we just need to know, what can really make the more challenging rigor more effective? Also what are the downfalls of pushing our students too hard?