The minimum standards approach

What do we expect everyone who graduates from high school to know? We expect literacy. We expect a certain set of mathematical skills. We have all sorts of ideas regarding what we should demand that every student should know.


There is a very serious problem with this mentality. It relies on a single attainable goal for very different students who have very different strengths. What I should have learned during my high school years is very different from what you should have learned.

Most schools want everyone who graduates to meet their minimum standards. In order to reach that goal, they must set their standards to a level that they feel is in reach for their slowest students. This forces the fastest students to adjust their pace to that of the bottom one percent.

What happens when a student struggles in a class? That student is expected to work harder on that particular subject. In many cases, serious sacrifices must be made. In order to address weaknesses, many people are being forced to neglect their strengths.

The stakes are high for meeting minimum standards. Falling short is a much bigger deal than excelling beyond expectations. This results in all students basing their educational goals on successfully reaching these standards. There is little to no concern for learning beyond this point.

When a school pushes the minimum-standards approach, they are sending a horrible message to their students. They are insisting that all of their students, even their most brilliant minds, that their goals should be based off of the lowest common denominator. They establish that we should focus more on our weaknesses than our strengths. Ultimately, everybody falls well short of their potential as a result.