PREFACE
Why This Initiative?

A small diversified cluster of New Jersey educators and concerned citizens, whose members are the framers and supporters of this document (Appendix A), was recently formed to exchange views about the planned Department of Education review of the state core curriculum content standards. These individuals have thought deeply and feel strongly about how public education in New Jersey can be substantially improved. A state with the material resources and world class human talent of New Jersey should - and can - have an educational system second to none.

This effort has been named Project COMPASS (Citizens Offering a Minimal Plan for Achievable and Sustainable Standards) to reflect the focus, direction and scope of its proposals. We believe our recommendations, if adopted, can help produce an effective, workable system of K-12 standards for New Jersey that is demonstrably "thorough and efficient".

The COMPASS members believe the praiseworthy intent and format of the current core content standards and frameworks provide a solid basis upon which to build a more rigorous, user friendly, Information Age model. We believe this can be done with a minimal change of course, but with the substantial positive impact of a more holistic and purposeful design applied uniformly to all academic subject areas.

The COMPASS group has explored the field of various proposals, ideas and critiques of the current standards which include how they relate to assessment, accountability, professional development, teacher preparation and certification, vocational training, and other aspects of school reform. However, the group has elected to limit its recommendations at this time to the current standards review, design and implementation process only.

This is therefore a minimal action plan, (i.e., the least we should do) dealing with the standards part of the state education system. It is not a master plan. This in no way implies a minimizing of the need or the quality of the standards themselves. Standards are basic and topical. However, we believe improvements in the standards sub-system can have favorable effects on other parts of the total system as well.

Only those aspects of the standards design and implementation process that will make a substantial difference in the success of the review proceedings and the future use of standards are addressed in this report. Additional details of our findings and recommendations can be made available at any time.
Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

BASIC ISSUES AND CONCLUSIONS

Issue #1. What is a "thorough" public education and how is it to be provided?

Background

Based on the Introduction to the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards document, a thorough public education is defined as "what all students should know and be able to do" upon graduating from high school. The curriculum content standards "define the results expected" from thirteen years of public schooling. The introductive narrative of the mathematics standards goes on to say that standards "encompass both goals and expectations" and serve as definitions of "excellent practice." 

Standards and "frameworks" are to be used by local curriculum designers and teachers as resources to develop school district curricula and teaching methods that best meet the needs of the students in each community. This approach is entirely consistent with that propounded by the National Institute for Literacy in its "Equipped for the Future (EFF)" report.

"...the legitimacy and effectiveness of a systemic approach will depend in large part on its ability to strike a balance between the common culture and common needs of society as a whole and the diverse perspectives, needs, and strengths of subgroups and individuals within it. ...This balance could be facilitated by a system that combines a centralized vision and supportive infrastructure (top-down reform) with considerable responsibility, flexibility, and discretion at the local level (bottom-up reform)."
                         - Jennifer A. O'Day and Marshall S. Smith

There are currently 56 standards and 815 cumulative progress indicators in 7 academic subject areas. "Every student will be involved in experiences addressing all of the expectations of all of the content standards." In addition, there are 5 "cross content" standards and 57 progress indicators for work readiness which also apply to all students.

Work readiness is singled out for "special emphasis....through all content areas" as an essential goal of education to prepare workers with the ability to compete in the international marketplace. Such workers should be able to "solve real problems, reason effectively and make logical connections" in developing skills required to understand and manage new information and production technologies. The cross content standards are very broadly based on a national report of the "Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills" (SCANS) which identifies the Foundation Skills and Workplace Competencies for success in the world of work.

The core curriculum standards provide and define a "blueprint of excellence" to prepare New Jersey's children "for the future" and "to be successful in their careers and daily lives. " To do so they will require increasingly advanced levels of knowledge and skill" as they "continue to learn throughout their lives."

Of special note is the stated policy in the standards document that the current standards do not include the "affective domain" which address areas of self-esteem, emotions, feelings and personal values. The affective issues are considered to be more appropriately addressed locally by parents, teachers, administrators and others in the community. It is considered "inappropriate for the State to make judgments about student values or feelings."

This policy is somewhat at odds with the introduction to the mathematics standards which refers to attitudes, cooperative work, perseverance, self-assessment and self-confidence as contributing to both affective and intellectual growth. Also, cross-content workplace readiness standard 4 states that "All Students Will Demonstrate Self-Management Skills" such as "positive work behaviors, and ethics, the ability to work individually and cooperatively in groups, and respect for others of diverse cultural and social backgrounds."

These mixed signals, and the grim realities of societal problems intruding into the classroom learning environment, have recently been addressed by the State Board of Education and Department of Education joint Strategic Plan. The State has clearly stated that it is dedicated to providing a quality public education that prepares all children "to excel academically and to succeed as responsible, productive citizens in a global society." Goal 5 of the Strategic Plan states that policies and programs promulgated by the state "will positively impact the health, social and emotional well being of all students and to foster delivery of state services which effectively address the needs of the whole child."
Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

Discussion

Clearly, the overarching, all encompassing goal in achieving a thorough education in New Jersey is whole person, whole life, whole earth learning. The academic and cross content standards are intended to be the "bible" of this message. Frameworks are intended to help teachers interpret and apply the message most effectively in their communities. 

This is what is being said in the policies and standards of the state of New Jersey about the educational requirements of the whole person during his or her whole lifetime in a global society:

The Whole Person
     Academic excellence
     Basic and advanced technical skills
     Social and personal skills
     Responsible citizenship
     Mental, emotional and physical health
     Independent critical thinking, problem solving 
          and decision making
     Positive attitudes, values and character
  

A Whole Lifetime
     Lifelong learning
     Readiness for earning a living in a hi-tech world
     Success in "daily life"
     Being prepared and keeping pace with the future
  

A Whole Earth Perspective
     Globalization of -
          Competition
          Markets
          Jobs
          Cooperation
          Interdependence
          Languages
          Environmental concerns

This said, the question arises: what themes, ideas or perspectives, if any, in this comprehensive message are unclear, not sufficiently addressed or not addressed at all in the current standards to meet the stated goals ?

Project COMPASS members believe the current standards design can be improved in the following meaningful ways.
Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

Sustainability And Systems Thinking

Sustainability is the seminal issue unaddressed by the New Jersey curriculum content standards.

After three years of study and public hearings nationwide, the President's Council for Sustainable Development published a special report in 1994 entitled "Education for Sustainability: an Agenda for Action". This excellent report emphasizes the compelling responsibility of educators to ensure that the requirements for a just and sustainable society provide a fundamental framework for all educational policy. The Council defines sustainability as the integration of environmental health, economic strength and social equity.

These three overarching "e's" of a livable world - environment, economics and equity - are joining the three "r's" as basic educational prerequisites for building stronger links between the classroom and business careers, between schools and community development, and among all the academic disciplines. This is a major step forward in a lifelong learning process that leads to an informed and involved citizenry with the systems thinking skills, scientific and social literacy and commitment to engage in responsible individual and cooperative actions. It also embodies the moral admonition of "do no harm" and humankind's ethical responsibility to future generations.

The concept of sustainability, i.e., long term survival, is not a new idea or goal. What is new is the enormous impact of modern technology and of the unsustainable activity of increasing billions of people upon the earth's life support systems. Add to this the potential lethal threat of infectious diseases and chemical, biological and atomic weapons of mass destruction in unfriendly hands. It is imperative that we develop the knowledge, policies and actions required to deal with these threats in order to achieve a healthy, just and more secure future. 

Sustainability is not identified as an issue or an idea in any of the 56 academic standards for New Jersey. 

Of 815 progress indicators, sustainable development is mentioned in only one, viz., Social Studies 6.6.16. Indicators 6.6.5 and 6.6.10 deal with "the balance between economic growth and environmental preservation" although, in fact, there is no "balance". 

Four standards include the word "systems" as a descriptive term. No standards or indicators, however, use the term "systems thinking" which is the intellectual insight and integrated way of thinking required to broaden the boundaries of "in the box" problem solving, decision making and critical thinking. Computer simulation modeling and system dynamics are not identified as support tools to improve the way we make decisions. This is important because it can improve the decisions we make. Decisions based on a systems approach and the full societal and environmental costs of human activity are more likely to produce sustainable outcomes.

To quote visionary educator, David Orr, "Now more than ever ...we need people ... who know how to think in whole systems, how to find connections, how to ask big questions and how to separate the trivial from the important....by understanding patterns and root causes."

The current standards do not support state policy on sustainable development reflected in the New Jersey State Plan for Development and Redevelopment, the Office for Sustainable Business, and the Interagency Sustainability Working Group established by Executive Order 96. Nor do they recognize the stated sustainability goals of government, industry, non-profit and educational organizations throughout the country and the world.
Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

Readiness - A Purposeful Learning Goal

The current system of standards singles out workplace readiness for special emphasis as a goal of K-12 education, with its own "cross-content" standards and indicators. As important as company employability is, the COMPASS group believes that this excellent readiness concept should also be applied to the other major roles of adult life.

The National Institute for Literacy calls this type of standards design "role mapping". NIFL identifies three adult roles in life, viz., family, worker and citizen. Members of the COMPASS project prefer a classification of roles based on whole person, whole life, whole earth learning required for sustainability.

The following readiness categories proposed by COMPASS members are not listed in any preferred order of importance. They are all inextricably linked into a comprehensive concept of whole person, whole life, whole earth readiness for the four major roles almost everyone plays during his or her lifetime.
Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

Readiness For Life's Roles

1. Role of Producer of goods, services and ideas that call for sustainable WORKPATH READINESS during the earning years of one's lifetime in private or public service as an employee, entrepreneur, professional or other type of legitimate endeavor.
    
2. Role of Consumer of goods, services and information that call for personal and family financial planning in spending, saving, investing, borrowing and lending activities that demonstrate social and environmentally responsible MARKETPLACE READINESS in a competitive, free and fair trade, global economy.
    
3. Role of informed and active Citizen prepared to participate, negotiate and communicate effectively in the exercise of civil rights and civic responsibilities in accordance with the principles of DEMOCRACY READINESS calling for equal opportunity, due process and equal justice under law.
    
4. Role of Human Being striving for continuous self improvement and SELF-DEVELOPMENT READINESS through life long learning, intelligent and honorable behavior, physical and mental health, family cohesion, love of beauty in nature and the arts and commitment to the best qualities and goals of humankind.

Readiness as an educational goal for the four major roles in life possesses several important attributes:

• Readiness is a well understood concept familiar to those who engage in sports or have knowledge or experience with police or military operations. Everyone knows readiness requires planning, study and practice. Everyone knows it requires relevant knowledge, a positive attitude, discipline and a great deal of skill.
   
• Most people are aware that the world is rapidly changing. It is getting smaller and more interdependent, but also fuller and more threatening. New knowledge is growing at an explosive rate. Science and technology can bring great benefits and wealth, but they also have the potential for disastrous malapplication and ruin. Great challenges and opportunities abound in the future and it is important for every person to understand what it takes to be prepared for them in a complex, uncertain and changing global environment. 
   
• Cross-content readiness standards and progress indicators should serve as essential real life targets for academic standards and indicators. Academic standards for K-12 education are not ends in themselves. The goal of scholarship excellence in every subject for every student is unrealistic and unnecessarily overwhelming. Excellence is a valid goal but the goal is to focus on the knowledge one needs and when and how to use it.
   
• Academic silos of standards for scholastic excellence are not conducive to the systems thinking, integrated problem solving, decision making, communication and social skills required for purposeful readiness for each of life's roles. Academic standards should focus on an enduring understanding of the human experience, relevant principles, big issues, core ideas and thinking skills that will enhance readiness for the most likely challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
    
• Preparation for adult readiness must begin in early childhood when lifelong attitudes and habits of thought and conduct are formed. Basic literacy, communication and social skills are imperative by the 4th grade as the necessary foundation for what needs to be learned thereafter. Emotional distress, and poor attitudes and health habits can frustrate efforts to produce intelligent behavior and responsible decision making in subsequent years. 
   
   4th grade progress indicators for cross content readiness standards and academic standards should specifically address this need. For example, the theme of "healthy habits, healthy planet, healthy me" is pregnant with relevant possibilities for learning about our own bodies, living systems, food safety, the nutrition and math of food labeling, personal and dental hygiene, clean air and water, agriculture, world hunger, natural resources, organic gardening, litter, recycling, composting, etc., and how all these things are connected. 
   
• Readiness requires decision-making ability that is conscious of the array of different consequences of alternative choices and the need to measure progress and performance. It promotes timely prevention, discourages procrastination, and encourages long term planning.
   
• Although individuals cannot be expected to always be ready for every eventuality, a society of individuals who collectively have readiness as a lifelong achievable set of goals is a society destined to be economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.
  Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

Issue #2. What is an "efficient" public education and how is it to be achieved?

Discussion

Increasing volumes of information, are piling up daily on desks, tables, compact disks, floors, computer data banks and in mail boxes nationwide. The escalating discovery of new knowledge and new ways to look at existing knowledge are competing with floods of other information for the time and attention of teachers confronted constantly with class management problems, curriculum and assessment conflicts and daily lesson plans. Who has time to study and apply thick state publications about core curriculum standards and frameworks? How can we make the teacher's job more effective and at the same time easier to manage?

The curriculum standards repeatedly tell students to "use technology". This is good advice not only for students but for educators as well. Tools are available and currently in use in business and government today that can make the difference between a 19th century educational system and the 21st century system that the state of New Jersey seeks to create.
Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

Knowledge Management

The need for computerization of educational information is urgent and compelling. The effectiveness and efficiency of the introduction, digestion and delivery of up-to-date knowledge affects how everyone thinks, works, lives, learns or fails to learn in real time. Traditional practice in this crucial delivery system is not efficient and no longer acceptable.

New generation "middle ware" is available that can be used to seek, screen select, organize and deliver information from a variety of reliable sources to selected, appropriate applications, converting the infamous "infoglut" into useful, timely material. 

Academic and readiness cross content standards and indicators can and should be classified and coded in software programs for a variety of purposes:

1. Academic standards and indicators could be linked to each other across disciplines in accordance with a protocol of types of relevant relationships.
    
2. Academic standards and indicators could be readily linked to readiness cross-content standards and indicators.
    
3. The amount of content and number of standards in academic subjects, especially in social studies, could be more satisfactorily determined by their importance to the readiness standards to which they relate.
    
4. More systematic and rigorous use of common terminology in all the standards and indicators would result from a systems analysis and computer programming of the entire process.
    
5. A compact or floppy disk reference library of local and state explanatory examples and issues could be provided to provide clarity, relevance and specificity of standards and indicators, particularly with reference to the quality of life and sustainability goals of the New Jersey State Plan for Development and Redevelopment, the state Sustainability/Greenhouse Gas Action Plan, the State Watershed Management Program, the Living with the Future in Mind publication of New Jersey Future, and the New Jersey Sustainable Schools Network.
   
   Note: Students should learn about the issues and future prospects of the area in which they live. The name "New Jersey" appears in 4 of the 56 academic standards, but in none of the 61 progress indicators for these 4 standards. "New Jersey" is mentioned only 3 times in the total number of 815 academic indicators.
    
6. Progress indicators calling for debate or discussion of public issues could be input into computer simulation models for problem solving or decision making exercises.
    
7. Progress indicators could be coded as to whether students should thoroughly understand a topic or issue, know about it to some degree, or merely be made aware of it.
    
8. Data bank information on standards and indicators could be programmed for use by other DOE programs, such as professional development and assessment.
    
9. New Jersey could play a leadership role in the emerging technology of "knowledge representation" which will enable computers to use a new "Semantic Web" to process and "understand" data they merely display today on the World Wide Web. Properly designed, the Semantic Web can eventually assist in the evolution of knowledge as a whole. (Scientific American, May 2001).
   Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

Computer Simulation Models

A crucial contributor to the stunning rate of new discoveries in recent years has been the invention and productive use of new tools to see farther and deeper into the physical and biological mysteries of life than ever before. Examples are atom smashers, super computers, the electron microscope, outer space probes, magnetic resonance imaging, DNA code sequencing equipment, etc.

Computer simulation modeling, for example, has become a preeminent interactive learning tool, most notably used for training pilots, surgeons and most recently in learning about climate change. In recent years systems dynamics has contributed immensely to the modeling of real life situations for the purpose of decision support. It is now widely used in industry, government and the military for strategic planning to evaluate the anticipated consequences of proposed solutions under projected alternative scenarios of the future. It is excellent practice for integrated systems thinking and, as such, can contribute greatly to the development of higher order thinking skills by reducing the incidence of unintended consequences and producing more responsible and sustainable decisions.

An interdisciplinary systems approach is in no way a dumbing down of academic standards. Quite the contrary. There is nothing to inhibit any school, any teacher or any student of any age from learning as much as they want using system thinking materials and models from pen and paper graphics to developing an expertise in interactive computer technology in any academic or vocational specialty of their choice.

Buckminster Fuller is reported to have said, "If you want to teach others a new way of thinking, don't give them a lecture, give them a tool. In using the tool they will learn the thinking behind it". Computer simulation, systems thinking and internet resources provide powerful tools for students to experience the results of their own decision making in a way to produce enduring understanding, Information Age skills and whole life, whole earth readiness.
Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Standards Review Process

1. Establish a Readiness Goals Committee to determine whole person, whole life, whole earth readiness standards and progress indicators (i.e., "role mapping").
    
2. Prepare policy guidance instructions for project participants to review existing academic standards in accordance with a Design for Readiness model.
    
3. Provide examples of preferred, standardized terminology to fit precisely the definition of a standard, and insure that progress indicators (1) accurately reflect the descriptive statements of each standard and (2) include essential aspects of standards in all three grade categories but at different levels of complexity requiring differentiated levels of understanding.
   (See Social Studies Standard 6.6) 
    
4. Whenever feasible, express standards, and especially indicators, in specific terms of critical issues, competing values, historical story lines and turning points to promote understanding of big ideas, principles, connections, and multiple cause and effect relationships.
    
5. Establish a Special Coordinating Committee to "word engineer" sustainability issues and systems thinking into standards and indicators wherever appropriate. (For example, tweaking the wording of Science standards 5.1, 5.10 and 5.12 and Social Studies standard 6.8).
    
6. Recognize the need to improve basic literacy and math skills, health habits and social skills in grades K-4 in crafting the cumulative progress indicators.
    
7. Include assessment personnel on the standards review committees, especially for grades K-4 and social studies to explore how the requirements of several academic standards could be assessed in the context of multidisciplinary problems given in a single test, there by reducing the number of tests of separate subjects.
   Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

Knowledge Management

1. Establish a long term program for the computerization of coded standards and indicators to assist local curriculum designers and teachers to cope with the increasing volume and complexity of a standards-based learning system.
    
2. Establish reference data banks or web sites of activities and explanatory examples for clarification of standards and indicators and assistance in their use, including liberal use of New Jersey examples.
    
3. Establish an effective implementation program to assist local school district administrators and teachers in the use of a computerized system of standards, indicators and simulation modeling on a timely and collaborative basis.
   Report Contents               Transmittal Letter

PROJECT COMPASS
Framers and Supporters

1. Clinton Andrews, Assistant Professor
   Bloustein School, Rutgers University
    
2. Jeffrey Brown, Executive Director
   Global Learning, Inc.
    
3. James Campbell, Superintendent
   New Brunswick Parks & Shade Trees
    
4. Donna Caputo, Recycling Coordinator
   City of New Brunswick
    
5. Francis Chinard, M.D., F.A.C.P.
   Emeritus Distinguished Professor, UMDNJ
    
6. Fred Ellerbusch, President
   SYSTEMSTHINK, LLC
    
7. Carl Henn, Principal
   Select Investments Group
    
8. Thomas Henry, Director
   Office of Schools to Careers, DOE
    
9. Howard Herbert, Director
   Ramapo College Learning Lab
    
10. Richard Langheim, Exec. Director Mgt. Info. Systems
     Ridgewood Schools
     
11. Pam Lewis, Teacher
    New Brunswick Public Schools
     
12. Tim Lucas, Supervisor of Curriculum & Instruction
     Glen Rock Schools
     
13. John Mulhern, Director
    Teacher Education, Ramapo College
     
14. Michael Shannon, Director
    Center for Design Studies

Report Contents               Transmittal Letter