Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne

The last time I wrote a guest column for the Arizona Capitol Times, I wrote about the danger of schools narrowing their curriculum to the subjects tested on the AIMS test — reading, writing, and math — and neglecting science, social studies, and the arts. In fact, we are aware of a number of elementary schools that teach no social studies, science, or the arts, and teach only the tested subjects. That, of course, is unacceptable.
I described the first step to correct the situation: the hard work involved in getting the State Board, after considerable controversy and resulting delays, to adopt content-rich standards — the detailed specifications of what teachers should be teaching — in science, social studies, and the arts.
Arizona was recognized last year for this effort at a press conference at which the chief historian for The History Channel stated: “In developing the Multimedia Classroom, we analyzed the history curriculum of every state — now that was a thrill a minute! And it was Arizona that stood head and shoulders ahead of the other 49. The ADE has developed a thoroughly impressive social studies/history curriculum for grades K-12 that few states can approach.”
The next step is to implement those standards. If we do not test our standards in science, history and the arts, a number of schools will ignore the standards and will not teach the subjects. Our community suffers when we graduate students who do not know the history of our country, the Greco Roman basis for Western civilization, or global history. History is to a country what memory is to an individual. If you take away an individual’s memory, he does not know where he has been, he does not know where he is going, and he does not know how to deal with the problems of the present. The same is true of a country if its citizens do not know our own history.
One of my proposals to the Legislature this year will be to add AIMS tests in science, history, and the arts. They would not be high stakes: passing the tests would not be required for graduation. But these end-of-course tests would count in the academic profile of the schools, thereby giving the schools an incentive to teach these crucial subjects.
The proposal is for history tests in grades three, six, seven and high school; science tests in grades four, eight and high school; and some arts tests in high school.
The federal government will require science testing by 2008. The task force of science teachers decided that the high school test would be an end-of-course biology test. One of the benefits of end-of-course testing is that it enables us to measure the value added by teachers. In grades three through eight we can now do this, because we can take the prior year’s AIMS score compared with the current year’s AIMS score. But in high school, the current AIMS test is too general, and does not give information about the value added in a given subject.
Part of my agreement with the science teachers was that if they would adopt biology as the science course to satisfy the federal requirement, I would seek from the Legislature end-of-course tests in physics, chemistry, and earth science. In order that we not neglect social studies, we will also need end-of-course tests in American history, world history, government and economics.
In math, the highest level of math that is tested in the AIMS test is elementary algebra, geometry, data analysis, probability, discreet mathematics number sense, operations, structure, and logic. We need end-of-course testing in intermediate algebra, advanced algebra, trigonometry, and solid geometry. Once we get to calculus, we have the Advanced Placement test to serve that function.
Teachers already give end-of-course tests. By having these types of statewide exams, we can have assurance of a standard level of quality, and that no one is teaching arithmetic and calling it intermediate algebra.
Reading, writing and math are important skills. But so are science, history and the arts. We need to add these assessments to be sure that schools stop neglecting those subjects, and that our students are getting a complete education.
Tom Horne is beginning his second term as Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction.