Developing Reporting Standards
from Developing Standards-Based Report Cards
by Thomas R. Guskey and Jane M. Bailey
Reporting standards provide the basis for communicating meaningful and understandable
information about students' performance and achievement in school.
Reporting Standards
Although many words might be considered synonymous with standards—including goals,
objectives, outcomes, competencies, and proficiencies—their meaning in educational settings is
quite specific. Standards describe what students should know and be able to do as a result of their
experiences in school. In other words, standards identify the specific knowledge, skills, abilities,
and dispositions that we hope students will gain through interactions with teachers and fellow
students in school learning environments.
As we stressed in Chapter 2, most modern standards for student learning include two
components. First, they describe particular elements of content; that is, what specific knowledge
students are expected to acquire as a result of their involvement in instructional activities.
Second, they describe levels of performance in relation to that knowledge; that is, what students
are expected to do with what they learn. These levels of performance usually depict particular
student behaviors. They might convey a relatively simple skill, such as knowing specific facts in
mathematics or science. Or they might describe more complex cognitive processes, like the
ability to reason logically, analyze data, or solve multipart problems.
The curriculum frameworks developed by educators at the national, state/provincial, and
district levels typically classify standards for student learning along multiple dimensions of both
content and performance. These frameworks often serve as excellent tools for teachers as they
plan instructional units and design classroom assessments. Rarely, however, do they provide an
appropriate basis for reporting on student learning. Most curriculum frameworks include far too
many standards described in too much detail and in language that is far too complicated for most
parents and students to understand.
To develop an effective standards-based report card, educators must keep in mind the
distinction between the content and performance standards defined for curriculum and
instructional purposes and the reporting standards developed for the purpose of communicating
information about student learning to parents, students, and others. The best reporting standards
are precise enough to communicate the knowledge and skills students are expected to acquire but
not so detailed that they lose their significance and usefulness when shared with parents and
students. Furthermore, reporting standards must be expressed in parent-friendly language so that
parents and students alike understand exactly what they mean.
Perhaps most important, the best reporting standards are limited in number to facilitate
their utility as tools for improvement. As we will emphasize again in the next chapter, four to six
reporting standards in each subject area generally work best for a standards-based report card.
Breaking down each subject area into four to six reporting standards helps clarify precisely
enough what students are expected to learn and be able to do but does not overwhelm parents
and students with unnecessary detail.
We are not certain as to why four to six reporting standards work best. We suspect that it
may be due to our human capacity to retain meaningful information. In a classic paper published
in 1956, George A. Miller observed that individuals can hold only a small number of "chunks" of
information in what we now understand to be the "working memory." He estimated the capacity
of chunks for most people to be about seven, depending on the type of information involved.
Memory expert Nelson Cowan revisited Miller's seminal work more recently (Cowan, 2000) and
estimated the capacity of most individuals' working memory for new information to be only four
chunks. Keeping the number of reporting standards in a subject area at four to six therefore may
facilitate memory and help both parents and students maintain a clearer focus on improvement
efforts. This research also provides strong evidence to support the saying "Less is more." The
less you overload parents with extraneous information, the more helpful and useful that
information is likely to be.
Furthermore, the use of four to six reporting standards significantly lessens the reporting
burden for teachers. To record information on every student's learning progress on 34 language
arts standards and 27 mathematics standards—not to mention the standards in science, social
studies, art, music, and physical education—creates a bookkeeping nightmare for teachers. The
use of four to six reporting standards in each subject area makes the task much more
manageable. The box below summarizes some of the major differences between curriculum
framework standards and reporting standards.
Differences in Standards
Curriculum Standards
1. Designed for Planning Instruction and
Assessments
2. Many in Number (10-50 per subject)
3. Highly Specific
4. Complicated and Detailed
5. Expressed in Complex, Educator Language
Reporting Standards
1. Designed for Reporting on Student Learning
2. Relatively Few in Number (usually 4-6 per
subject)
3. Broad and More General
4. Clear and Understandable
5. Expressed in Parent-Friendly Language
The Development Process
Developing reporting standards typically requires combining or synthesizing more narrowly
defined curriculum framework standards into broader categories that expressively summarize
students’ performance. Many curriculum frameworks already sort standards into these broader
categories and label them strands, domains, or areas of study. If these categories are clear,
concise, and understandable, they may serve well as a basis for identifying reporting standards.
If clear and relatively few in number, strand or category labels may serve well as
reporting standards. In our experiences developing standards-based report cards, however, we
find that those curriculum framework categories often need to be reworded to use simpler and
more parent-friendly language. Student learning standards for mathematics, for example, are
frequently grouped into categories or strands.
MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM
The breakdown process has the additional benefit of providing teachers with direction as
they analyze specific instructional goals and plan appropriate instructional activities. It also
guides them in describing the explicit levels of performance that they want to help students
acquire. In addition, most curriculum frameworks offer further detailed information on each
curriculum strand.
The challenge in designing a good standards-based report card is in moving from the
curriculum standards teachers are accustomed to using on a daily basis to the reporting standards
that will most help parents or others make sense of students' performance in a given subject area.
Reporting standards must be expressed in parent-friendly (or student-friendly) language.
A second challenge for educators developing a standards-based report card is the amount
of detail to include for each reporting standard. For teachers, a list of specific proficiencies may
help them organize information in their grade book or prepare checklists to keep track of
students' progress in meeting major learning goals. Parents, however, may find such detail
confusing. Always remember that the primary goal of the report card is effective communication.
Therefore, above all else, the selected reporting standards must clearly communicate to parents
and others what students are expected to learn and are able to do. Too much detail can detract
from the effectiveness of that communication.
At the same time, it is important to keep in mind what we said earlier about
understanding the context and audience for the report card. In some school contexts, parents and
others may find the language of the "specific proficiencies" to be perfectly clear. In other
contexts, however, parents may find it difficult to understand.
To illustrate further the differences between curriculum standards and reporting
standards, we turn to another important subject area—English or language arts. Language arts
standards are typically divided into broad categories, or strands. While the strands or domains in
mathematics usually relate to different subtopics, in language arts they more often' describe
different subskills or means of expression.
To be meaningful and effective, reporting standards must be clear, concise, and readily
interpretable. We always must keep in mind that our primary goal in developing a standardsbased report card is effective communication. Context is always vitally important. Educators in
all settings must consider their audience when designing a reporting form. Reporting standards
should offer enough information of sufficient detail to communicate how well students are
performing in relation to explicit learning goals. At the same time, they should not overwhelm
parents with unnecessary detail or confuse parents with information they can not understand or
do not know how to use. Inundating parents and others with information that does not make
sense or that they cannot use defeats the purpose of reporting. The primary goal is to present
information about students' performance and achievement in school to parents and others in a
form that they find both useful and meaningful.