The Development of National

1 Educational Standards
An Expertise
Education Reform
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 Eckhard Klieme
Hermann Avenarius
Werner Blum
Peter Dbrich
Hans Gruber
Manfred Prenzel
Kristina Reiss
Kurt Riquarts
Jrgen Rost
Heinz-Elmar Tenorth
Helmut J. Vollmer

The Development
of National Educational
Standards
An Expertise

This expertise was jointly presented by Edelgard Bulmahn,

Federal Minister of Education and Research; Karin Wolff,
President of the Standing Conference of the Ministers
of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Lnder (KMK);
and Prof. Dr. Eckhard Klieme of the German Institute for
International Educational Research (DIPF) on 18 February
2003. The speeches made on this occasion by
Edelgard Bulmahn, Karin Wolff and the Chair of the KMK
School Committee, Ministerialdirigent Klaus Karpen, are
available in the German vesion of the publication, as are a
variety of media responses to the report.
 Authors:
Prof. Dr. Eckhard Klieme (Coordination), German Institute for Inter-
national Educational Research, Frankfurt am Main, Centre for
Educational Quality and Evaluation
Prof. Dr. Hermann Avenarius; German Institute for International
Educational Research, Frankfurt am Main, Centre for Financing,
Monitoring and Controlling of the Education System
Prof. Dr. Werner Blum, University of Kassel, Department of Mathe-
matics and Computer Science
Dr. Peter Dbrich, German Institute for International Educational
Research, Frankfurt am Main, Centre for Educational Quality and
Evaluation
Prof. Dr. Hans Gruber, University of Regensburg, Chair of Pedagogy
III, Research on Teaching and Learning and Media Education
Prof. Dr. Manfred Prenzel, Leibniz Institute for Science Education,
Kiel, Department of Educational Sciences
Prof. Dr. Kristina Reiss, University of Augsburg, Chair of Mathematics
Education
Dr. Kurt Riquarts, Leibniz Institute for Science Education, Kiel,
Department of Educational Sciences
Prof. Dr. Jrgen Rost, Leibniz Institute for Science Education, Kiel,
Department of Pedagogical and Psychological Methods
Prof. Dr. Heinz-Elmar Tenorth, Humboldt University, Berlin, Vice
President for Teaching and Studies, Department for the History of
Educational Science
Prof. Dr. Helmut J. Vollmer, University of Osnabrck, Department of
Language and Literature

With the assistance of: Jutta Laukart, DIPF; Dr. Andreas Paetz, DIPF

Coordination: German Institute for International Educational

Research, Frankfurt am Main

Funded by the
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

2
 Table of Contents
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1. Background, Aims and Structure of the Report . . 7

The Concept and Function of Educational Standards

2. The Concept of Educational Standards . . . . . . . . . 15
3. Examples: Standards and Curricula in
Mathematics Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4. The Significance of Standards for the Further
Development of Schools and Teaching . . . . . . . . . 42

The Foundation for the Development of Educational

Standards
5. Educational Standards, Competency Models
and Educational Goals: Problems of Construction
and Legitimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
6. Competency Models from the Perspective
of Educational Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
7. Test Development: Methodological and
Diagnostic Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

The Impact of Educational Standards on the

Education System
8. Implications for Curriculum Development and
School Curricula: Standards and Core Curricula:
Standards and Core Curricula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Table of Contents

9. Using Educational Standards for the Purposes

of Monitoring, Evaluation and Individual
Diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
10. Support Systems and Their Responsibilities . . . . . 99

The Development and Implementation of Educational

Standards in Germany
11. The Necessary Infrastructure for the Development
and Implementation of Educational Standards . . 108
12. The Development of Educational Standards in
Germany: Current Status and Future Perspectives 119

3
 Appendix:
Examples for the Further Development of
Competency Models
(a) The Common European Framework of Reference
for Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
(b) The Common Framework of Science Outcomes (Canada) . 145

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

4
 Summary
National educational standards articulate binding re-
quirements for school-based teaching and learning. They
thereby constitute a key mechanism in the effort to secure
and enhance the quality of the work done in schools. Edu-
cational standards express the essential goals of pedagogi-
cal work in precise, comprehensible and focused terms as
desired learning outcomes for students. They thus translate
into concrete terms the educational mission to be fulfilled
by schools.
The present report makes the following proposals for the
development of educational standards:
Educational standards have their source in general edu-
cational goals. They specify the minimum competencies
that young people should acquire by a particular grade.
These competencies are described in specific terms,
enabling them to be translated into concrete tasks and
assessed through testing. Decisive in this concept are
descriptions of the competencies that are acquired within a
specific subject or area of study, and of their various dimen-
sions and levels. Competency models translate the content
and levels of general education into specific terms. They
thus constitute a pragmatic response to the issues of con-
struction and legitimisation raised in traditional debates
on education and curricula. This report presents several
examples of competency models from the fields of mathe-
matics (e.g., PISA), foreign language learning and the natu-
ral sciences. These models incorporate insights from the
fields of subject didactics and educational psychology.
The first function of educational standards is to provide
schools with guidance in the implementation of binding
educational objectives. Standards can serve as a road map
for teachers, students, and parents, in working together
towards the pedagogical development of their schools and
the continued improvement of teaching.
Competency models give teachers a frame of reference for
Summary

their work. Educational standards leave the individual

schools a broad scope to shape and structure their work,
especially when the state curricula and framework guideli-
nes are confined to core curricula. Schools can draw great
benefit from this greater freedom and flexibility, but they
will also need the support of the teacher training institu-
tions, the school supervisory authorities and the state edu-
cation institutes.

5
 A second function of educational standards is to make it possible to
assess and evaluate educational outcomes and thus to determine
whether students have in fact acquired the desired competencies.
This makes it possible to gauge the degree to which the educational
system has succeeded in its mission (educational monitoring), and
gives the schools feedback on the outcomes of their work (school
evaluation). The standards can also provide a point of orientation for
individual diagnosis and supplementary support measures. However,
the report emphasises that, for methodological reasons, assessments
used for the purposes of educational monitoring and school evalua-
tion are not usually suitable for this kind of individual diagnosis. The
authoring panel advises against using the standards or standards-
based assessments for the purposes of grading and certification.
In the final two chapters, the report describes the infrastructure that
will be needed in Germany to develop and implement educational
standards and to initiate educational monitoring and school evalua-
tion, and outlines the steps to be taken in the coming years.
Ongoing efforts within the states and in the framework of the KMK
form a good starting point for this project. Tasks to be tackled in the
near future include, above all, elaborating competency models
based on insights from subject didactics, stipulating minimum
standards, developing pools of test items and assessment pro-
grammes, and ensuring their implementation in schools. This report
emphasises that the matter of stipulating binding standards and
evaluating schools on this basis is the concern of the individual
states. However, we propose that a national agency be founded for
the development of standards and assessments as well as a (national)
educational monitoring programme, which could be linked to PISA
and other international studies.
If standards can be designed to impart a vision of education pro-
cesses, to incorporate a modern philosophy of the subjects taught
in schools, and to offer prospects for the development of student
abilities, then they can become the driving force in the future peda-
gogical development of our schools.

6
 1. Background, Aims and Structure
of the Report
1.1 Starting Point: Educational Standards as a
Response to Problems within the Education
System
The state of the education system and its prospects for
development have become the subject of increasing de-
bate in Germany since publication of the TIMSS results
(Baumert, Lehmann et al. 1997, Baumert, Bos & Lehmann
2000 a, b). In recent months, the Forum Bildung, a wor-
king party set up by the German federation and states to
elaborate recommendations for educational reform, and
the tremendous response to the PISA study (OECD 2001,
Baumert et al. 2001, Baumert et al. 2002 a) have given
this debate an intensity and a range not seen in years.
Discussion has focused primarily on the quality of schools
and instruction in the upper and lower secondary sectors
(grades 513), but, at least indirectly, changes are being
called for at the pre-school and primary level as well. Edu-
cation policymakers from across state and party bounda-
ries are prepared to make radical reforms.
It is beyond dispute that these empirical studies, which
analysed the actual situation in German schools and
compared it to the international context for the first time
in almost 20 years, have revealed serious flaws. The com-
parison of learning outcomes between the individual
German states and between Germany and other countries
resulted in much disappointment and criticism. These
rankings are less important than findings related to struc-
tural issues, however. These structural insights can pro-
vide an indication of where reforms are needed. The
studies point to disparities that continue to characterise
the German education system: between regions, between
children of different social backgrounds, and between
immigrants and those who have grown up in Germany.
The studies confirm the significance of the social and
family context for success in school, but they also suggest
ways of structuring teaching and learning processes, such
as taking a cross-curricular approach to enhancing read-
ing literacy and providing ambitious, comprehension-
oriented instruction in mathematics and the sciences.

7
 TIMSS and PISA have initiated a fundamental change in thinking
about education policy and administration in Germany. Whereas
the education system has thus far been input driven i.e., con-
trolled by budgets, curricula and framework guidelines, teacher trai-
ning requirements, testing guidelines and so on increasingly fre-
quent calls are being made for a focus on output (i.e., the schools
performance; in particular, students learning outcomes) in educa-
tion policy and school development. In addition to cer-tifying edu-
cational qualifications, a key element of an education systems out-
put is the development of competencies, skills, knowledge struc-
tures, attitudes, beliefs and values in other words, student perso-
nality traits that lay the groundwork for lifelong learning and thus
enable further personal development and active participation in
society. Independently of the role played by students themselves and
by their parents, schools and education authorities are expected to
assume responsibility for seeing that these outcomes are in fact
achieved. As a consequence, output will become the decisive point
of reference in evaluations of the school system and in measures for
its improvement and further development. This focus on output goes
hand in hand with change in the role of state control, as has already
been observed in other areas of society. The state will no longer
ensure quality by issuing detailed guidelines and regulations, but by
defining goals and objectives and monitoring their achievement.
The criteria to be applied in an evaluation of the education
systems output and the associated values measured can and must
be multifaceted. The education system as a whole, as well as the
individual schools, should of course be evaluated according to the
proportion of students who have in fact acquired the desired compe-
tencies, beliefs and so on. However, neither system monitoring nor
the evaluation of individual schools should be limited to
simply ascertaining the median in assessments of student perfor-
mance and in attitude scales, no matter how broad the range of
competencies and attitudes covered. Goals for the system as a
whole, such as reducing disparities, furthering disadvantaged
children and teenagers, integrating immigrants, helping gifted
students, and improving the flexibility and openness of educational
trajectories must also be addressed. An evaluation of the education
system or individual schools within, for instance, the context of a
national report on the state of education should therefore not be
based on the average level of learning outcomes alone. The function
of schools is not only to ensure that individuals are able
to perform to the best of their ability, but also to reflect the way a
culture perceives itself and to promote social cohesion.

8
 Nevertheless, educational goals and actual learning outcomes are
at the heart of the debate on educational quality and are the sole
focus of this report. Attention is thus focused on one key question:
What do we expect of schools in terms of learning outcomes and
to what extent are these expectations being met? A number of
student assessment studies have been conducted in recent years
and have produced important insights in this respect: LAU in Ham-
burg (Lehmann, Gnsfu & Peek 1999), QUASUM in Brandenburg
(Lehmann & Peek 1997), MARKUS in Rhineland-Palatinate (Helmke
& Jger 2002), and state-wide comparative studies in other states.
Most recently, PISA (Baumert et al. 2001, Baumert et al. 2002a)
showed that:
The goals laid down in the curricula are often not achieved in
Germany. In reading and mathematics literacy, for instance, at
least 25 percent of the 15-year-olds tested did not reach the level
that curricular experts believe is necessary for successful com-
pletion of lower secondary schooling.
Student performance within Germany is more widely varied
than in any other PISA country. While the proportion of students
in Germany performing at the highest proficiency level is com-
parable to the OECD average, Germany fares much worse than
other countries in the proportion of students performing at or
below the lowest level. This finding has been interpreted as an
indication that Germany lacks minimum standards defining, for
instance, the level of reading or mathematics literacy to be
acquired at school.
In addition, the supplementary study PISA-E demonstrated that
there are significant differences between the individual states in
Germany. Both performance levels and grading standards vary
widely from state to state. In the interest of assuring the equal
treatment guaranteed by the German constitution (here: equal
opportunity in education for all young people, regardless of
place of residence), discrepancies of this kind should be reduced.
The PISA studys international findings, particularly the very
good results obtained by the Scandinavian countries and some of
the English-speaking countries, suggest that overall performance
is better in countries with a quality assurance system, whether
this consists of regular student assessment studies or an extensive
system of school evaluations.

In response to these findings, education policymakers from across

the party spectrum have repeatedly recommended that binding

9
 standards be adopted stipulating which competencies are expected
of students in Germany, and that regular testing be instituted to
ensure that these standards are being met. As a result, the Kultus-
ministerkonferenz (KMK), the council of Germanys ministers of edu-
cation and cultural affairs, resolved on 25 June 2002 to draw up
national educational standards in core subjects for particular
grades and for the grades in which a school-leaving certificate can
be obtained. Monitoring is to be accomplished by state-wide
surveys and comparative studies, as well as nation-wide compara-
tive investigations. Assessments such as PISA and the DESI test of
German and English skills (DESI-Konsortium 2001, Beck & Klieme
2003) currently being developed are to be employed as part of this
effort. Moreover, the data obtained here are to be used for future
national reports on the state of education in Germany. Similar sug-
gestions have been made jointly by the state and federal govern-
ment representatives who were part of the Forum Bildung.

1.2 The Task and Aims of the Authoring Panel

Those who have followed the debate in Germany in recent months
will, however, have noticed that there is still a lack of knowledge
regarding what standards actually are, how they are to be formu-
lated, the role they can play in quality development in the edu-
cation system, and how their attainment can be monitored. This
report therefore aims to present a specialist definition of the con-
cept of educational standards, as well as a framework describing
how educational standards for the German school system can be
structured, developed and implemented, taking the international
debate on education policy and educational science into account.
This concept of educational standards is intended to be compatible
with other criteria of quality in the education system and the
schools, such as the reduction of disparities. Moreover, it should
contribute to ensuring that these criteria are met.
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) initiated
preparation of this report. It commissioned the German Institute
for International Educational Research (DIPF) in Frankfurt am Main
to set up an interdisciplinary body of experts and produce a report
that would help education policymakers to devise and implement
binding national educational standards that could be utilised for
quality development. The KMK was informed of these plans and
expressed interest in incorporating the findings of the report into
its ongoing work on educational standards. It now joins the BMBF
in presenting this report to the public.

10
 The working group that drafted this report over the course of five
months includes experts from the DIPF, the Leibniz Institute for
Science Education (IPN) in Kiel, and various universities. The
members represent a wide variety of fields relevant to the topic:
general educational science and empirical educational research,
research on teaching and learning, school legislation, the history
and theory of education, pedagogical and psychological methods,
and the didactics of foreign languages and mathematics.
The members were soon agreed that the topic of educational
standards should not be treated mechanically and in isolation;
rather, it was to be viewed within the context of educational re-
form. Consequently, in addition to examining the concept of
standards and the mechanics of their implementation, the report
lays special emphasis on the function of standards for quality de-
velopment in education. If standards can be designed in such a
way that they impart a vision of education processes, a modern
philosophy of the subjects taught in schools, and prospects for
the development of student abilities, then the standards them-
selves could become the driving force in the pedagogical develop-
ment of our schools. Educational standards as described here ensu-
re that the pedagogical development of schools is guided by clear
and binding goals, and that those engaged in the process are able
to learn systematically from the actual outcomes. At the same time,
these standards do not conflict in any way with the schools au-
tonomy or the professional responsibility of each individual
teacher. Far from serving to constrain classroom instruction, they
will give schools additional freedom in terms of teaching content
and methods.
It will of course take time to develop educational standards able to
fully perform these functions. If standards are to be effective in the
schools, moreover, a variety of support measures must be put in
place for curriculum development, teacher training, school super-
vision and consulting, the establishment of systems of evaluation,
and so on. However, the education system cannot wait much lon-
ger for the initiation of these reforms. The KMK has already begun
addressing this task, and the present report is intended to stimu-
late a wide-ranging, scientifically sound and internationally rele-
vant discussion on the future approach to national educational
standards in Germany.

11
 1.3 The Structure of the Report
Four main sections follow this introduction:
I) The concept and function of educational standards:
Chapters 2 to 4
The three chapters in this section form the heart of the report.
Chapter 2 provides an introduction to the concept of educational
standards: they translate the educational mission of the schools
into competency requirements binding for all. The chapter iden-
tifies key characteristics of good standards, and places the view of
standards set out here in the context of the international debate.
By way of illustration, and in order to demonstrate that it is pos-
sible to base educational standards on differentiated competency
models, Chapter 3 offers examples from the field of mathematics.
(Additional examples from the fields of foreign languages and the
natural sciences can be found in the appendices.)
Finally, Chapter 4 explains what the introduction of educational
standards will mean for the further development of schools and
classroom instruction. This chapter describes the function of the
standards for individual schools and for the education system as a
whole from the perspective of teachers, students and parents. It
makes clear that standards not only constitute a new way of guid-
ing the education system, but that they serve above all as a
stimulus for the pedagogical development of schools. The chapter
emphasises that educational standards promote quality develop-
ment in the education system, but do not imply centralisation of
testing and certification.

II) The foundation for the development of educational standards:

Chapters 5 to 7
This section of the report provides a more detailed explanation
from a scientific perspective of the basic components introduced in
Chapter 2.
Educational standards are based on educational goals (Chapter 5)
established by society. Embedding standards and competency
models in general educational goals gives them a firm grounding
in educational theory and, at the same time, offers a pragmatic
solution to several traditional problems of construction and legiti-
misation in curriculum development.
Competency models (Chapter 6) describe the components and
levels of the various competencies on the basis of insights derived

12
 from subject didactics, and drawing on educational psychological
research on the development of knowledge and skills.
Finally, assessment programmes (Chapter 7) operationalise compe-
tency requirements by means of specific tasks. They fulfil various
diagnostic and evaluative goals and, at the same time, facilitate the
empirical monitoring of the competency models.

III) The impact of educational standards on the education system:

Chapters 8 to 10
While Chapter 4 summarises the significance of standards for the
further development of schools, Chapters 8 to 10 address in more
detail several key aspects relevant to the education system as a
whole.
In principle, educational standards will make centralised curri-
culum development less important, since the responsibility for
developing curricula on the basis of the standards will, in general,
be transferred to the schools. Chapter 8 addresses this new form of
curriculum development. For the time being, we recommend that
educational standards be developed in conjunction with central-
ised core curricula, which offer additional guidelines for sequenc-
ing and translating topics and content to the classroom.
Chapter 9 discusses the role played by standards-based assessment
programmes in the educational monitoring of the system as a
whole and in the evaluation of individual schools. This chapter also
addresses the circumstances under which standards-based testing
can be used to diagnose the competencies of individual students,
e.g., as the basis for placement in support programs.
Implementing educational standards in the schools will necessitate
additional support measures that can be provided by teacher trai-
ning, the school supervisory authorities and other bodies discussed
in Chapter 10.

IV) The development and implementation of educational

standards in Germany: Chapters 11 to 12
The last two chapters deal with practical issues of interest to the
schools, as well as issues relating to education policy and legal
questions raised by the introduction of standards, and make re-
commendations for future work.

13
 Chapter 11 identifies various task areas that will be involved in the
development and implementation of standards and suggests a
possible design for the infrastructure needed to execute these
tasks.
Finally, Chapter 12 reports on previous and current work on edu-
cational standards in Germany and identifies desiderata for the
work to be done in the next few years.

14
 2. The Concept of Educational Standards
2.1 How This Report Defines Educational Standards
Educational standards articulate requirements for school-based
teaching and learning. They identify goals for pedagogical work,
expressed as desired learning outcomes for students. Educational
standards thereby translate into concrete terms the educational
mission of schools offering a general education.
Educational standards, as conceived of in this report, draw on
general educational goals. They specify the competencies that schools
must impart to their students in order to achieve certain key edu-
cational goals, and the competencies that children or teenagers
are expected to have acquired by a particular grade. These com-
petencies are described in such specific terms that they can be
translated into particular tasks and, in principle, assessed by tests.
Educational standards thereby constitute a key mechanism in the
effort to secure and improve the quality of the work done in
schools. The standards can serve as a guide for schools and class-
room instruction and give educators a frame of reference for their
work. The schools task is to meet the competency requirements to
the extent possible, given the abilities of its students and the situa-
tion in the school, and the fulfilment of these requirements can be
determined with reference to the educational standards. This
makes it possible to establish the degree to which the education
system has succeeded in its mission, and gives the schools feedback
on the outcomes of their work.
Accordingly, the development of educational standards involves: (a)
decisions as to social and pedagogical goals, (b) scientific work,
especially in the fields of subject didactics and psychology, to deter-
mine the structure of competencies and (c) test development con-
cepts and methods.

(a) Educational standards are based on educational goals that are

intended to drive school-based learning; they translate these
goals into specific requirements.
Educational goals are relatively general statements about the
knowledge, abilities and skills, as well as attitudes, values, interests
and motivations, that schools are expected to impart. They express
the kinds of opportunities we want to give children and teenagers
to develop their individual personalities, to learn about cultural
and scientific traditions, to deal with the practical demands made
on them in life, and to participate actively in society. The edu-

15
 cational goals of schools should also be geared towards sustain-
ability and transferability; they must be applicable to lifelong lear-
ning and to the demands of everyday life, work and society.
These goals thereby formulate expectations for the development of
each individual student; at the same time, they place society and
its educational institutions under the obligation to create corres-
ponding opportunities for development. Educational goals drive
the development of the school system, enable schools to develop
individual profiles and teachers to structure classroom instruction,
and, not least, guide lesson planning and didactic approaches to
translating individual topics into practice in the classroom. This is
the level on which society and government express their expec-
tations of schools, based on a societal conception of development.
This is also the level on which innovation can be initiated and fun-
damental changes in course set in motion.
Educational goals are usually also associated with a particular view
of the significance of a subject or content area for personal deve-
lopment and of its social function. Is foreign language acquisition
geared towards communicative action or more towards a syste-
matic introduction to language and culture? Does mathematics
literacy consist of familiarity with problem-solving methods and
mastery of procedures or rather in the ability to model the prob-
lem to be solved? What role do an understanding of basic concepts
like energy and metabolism and theory-driven thought play in
general education in the natural sciences? Determining educatio-
nal goals therefore also requires agreement on what constitutes
the core of content areas and subjects.
Educational goals reflect only very general expectations, however.
In order to put these into practice in the classroom, we need a
medium in which these goals can be specified and defined. This
medium has traditionally been the curriculum, which is now to be
supplemented by competency models.

(b) Educational standards put goals into concrete terms in the

form of competency requirements. They stipulate the competen-
cies students must possess if key learning objectives are to be
considered achieved. These requirements are organised into
competency models, which describe aspects, levels and the deve-
lopmental trajectories of competencies.
As Weinert (2001, p. 27f.) puts it, competencies are cognitive abili-
ties and skills possessed by or able to be learned by individuals that
enable them to solve particular problems, as well as the motivatio-

16
 nal, volitional and social readiness and capacity to utilise the so-
lutions successfully and responsibly in variable situations.
Competency in the case of foreign language acquisition, for ins-
tance assuming the educational goal here to be the capacity for
communicative action is expressed by the ability to deal with
communicative situations, to understand different types of texts,
and to compose ones own texts in the appropriate register. How-
ever, it also entails the ability to produce sentences that are gram-
matically correct and to correct these if necessary, and the ability
and willingness to interact with other cultures openly and with
acceptance. Standards for foreign language learning must describe
these subcompetencies and distinguish between various profi-
ciency levels in each (see Appendix a). Cognitive knowledge is not
the only issue here; rather, as Weinert emphasises in the statement
cited above and as illustrated by the requirement of intercultural
competence, this knowledge is linked to attitudes, values and
motivations.
The use of the term competencies indicates that educational
standards unlike curricula and guidelines do not rely on lists of
content and material to make educational goals concrete. Rather,
they identify the basic dimensions of learning processes in a given
subject area (or domain, as knowledge psychologists put it) and
reflect the fundamental demands made on students in that do-
main. Key competencies can also develop as a result of diverse,
flexible and variable use and increasing linkage of concrete compe-
tencies in specific areas, but the acquisition of competencies must
as Weinert (2001) emphasises begin with the systematic develop-
ment of intelligent knowledge in a domain.1
The kind of educational standards recommended here are based
on competency models that must be developed by specialists in the
fields of pedagogy, psychology and subject didactics as a cooperati-
ve effort. Competency models of this kind distinguish between sub-
dimensions within a domain (e.g., the reception and production of
texts; oral and written linguistic usage) and describe different
levels of competency for each dimension. Each competency level is
defined by cognitive processes and actions of a particular calibre

1
) The term competencies as used here should therefore be distinguished
from the following concepts, which originated in vocational education
and are encountered frequently: technical competence, methodological
competence, social competence and personal competence. Competencies
are understood here as performance dispositions in particular subjects or
domains (cf. Chapter 6).

17
 that students at this level can handle and students at lower levels
cannot. Establishing educational standards involves specifying
levels that students in a given grade are expected to attain.
The assignment of requirements to the various levels of a compe-
tency model is not a matter of personal discretion. Rather, these
determinations are decisions that can only be made by professio-
nals based on educational goals (e.g., on an understanding of the
educational mission of a particular subject), and drawing on the
experience and traditions of the relevant disciplines. The input of
subject didactics is particularly important when deciding which
requirements are reasonable and justifiable. Educational standards
help to make these decisions transparent and thus to ensure that
they can be reviewed according to scientific and professional
criteria. Competency models reflect the dimensions and levels of
competencies, which can, in principle, be evaluated empirically
with the aid of appropriate tasks (see point c below). The cognitive
sciences and educational diagnostics provide various models and
methods suited to this task (NRC 2001).
Competency models should also convey information about the
contexts and age groups within which the individual competency
domains develop and about the influences operative on this deve-
lopment. Only under these circumstances can schools be expected
to contribute appropriate measures to the systematic development
of competencies and to cumulative learning.
Competency models are scientific constructs. The attainment of a
given competency level conveys information about the tasks and
mental operations that a student will, in all probability, be able to
execute correctly. However, specific examples and operationali-
sations, as well as assessment parameters in the form of test items,
are needed for these models to be transferred to the curriculum
and the classroom, and for student performance to be evaluated.

(c) Educational standards as the outcomes of learning processes

are translated into tasks and, ultimately, assessment programmes
which allow the competency level actually attained by students
to be measured reliably in empirical surveys.
This third aspect makes it possible to verify empirically that stan-
dards have been achieved. Taking competency descriptions as a
guide, tasks are devised to test whether a student has developed
the desired outcome or capacity for action. Appropriate test items
cannot, however, simply be derived from the competency descrip-
tions. Rather, they must be generated and tested for validity. With

18
 the appropriate assessment methods, the level of competency
attained can be determined.
Using educational standards for quality development in schools
requires all three components: educational goals, competency
models, and tasks or assessments.
(i) Competency requirements that do not relate to general edu-
cational goals can only be either entirely arbitrary or mere
expert opinion. It is only when these goals are used as a guide
that desirable levels of proficiency can be determined, and
appropriate assessments developed. In particular, the standards
should be based on an understanding of the educational mis-
sion of the given subject areas, which must be explained.
(ii) Competency models and expectations are indispensable for
mediating between relatively abstract, generalised educational
goals on the one hand and concrete item pools on the other.
Competency levels, in particular, are a key resource for the con-
struction of tasks, whether in the context of lesson planning or
test development. Competency models suggest ways to devise
tasks by specifying cognitive performances of various levels of
difficulty. Conversely, only once a task has been classified wit-
hin a competency model can one understand what the ability
or lack of ability to solve that task signifies, and give the appro-
priate feedback. Accordingly, models that characterise the
development of competencies over the course of several levels
are an important source of guidance for classroom instruction
and for the evaluation of learning outcomes.
(iii) If no monitoring of outcomes took place, educational goals, as
static values, would become detached from the actual develop-
ment of the school. As research on the reception of curricula
has shown repeatedly, the goals would be of little relevance to
teaching activity and would often even go unnoticed. Feedback
on the competency level achieved is therefore an essential com-
ponent of continuous, systematic quality development. Tests
can provide information on the attainment of educational
goals. This information can be used to further the development
of the school, classroom instruction and teaching methods.

19
 2.2 Characteristics of Good Educational Standards
There are quite a number of ways to arrive at educational stan-
dards, and the product can take many different forms. This will
be illustrated below using a variety of examples (see Section 2.3,
Chapter 3, and the appendices). There are, however, a number of
characteristics that good educational standards must possess if
they are to convey binding goals and competency requirements as
unambiguously as possible to all those involved in the schools.
1. Subject-specificity: Educational standards relate to a specific con-
tent area and set out in clear terms the basic principles of the
discipline and/or of the subject.
2. Focus: The standards do not cover the entire range of the content
area or subject in all its ramifications; rather, they concentrate
on a core area.
3. Cumulativity: Educational standards relate to competencies that
have been developed by a certain point in a students learning
biography, and therefore target cumulative, systematically inte-
grated learning.
4. Binding for all: They communicate minimum requirements that
are expected of all learners. These minimum standards must
apply to all students, regardless of school type.
5. Differentiation: The standards do not simply set a bar, however.
Rather, they distinguish between competency levels above and
below or prior and subsequent to the achievement of the mini-
mum standard, thus casting light on the learning process and
facilitating both the further specification of levels and the diffe-
rentiation of profiles representative of the additional require-
ments of a state, a school or a type of school.
6. Comprehensibility: The educational standards are formulated in
clear, concise and understandable terms.
7. Feasibility: The requirements represent a challenge for students
and teachers, but can be fulfilled with reasonable effort.
These characteristics of good educational standards are discussed
in more detail in the following:

Characteristic 1: Subject-specificity
The subjects taught in schools form the framework that traditional-
ly has determined the structure of teaching and learning activities
there, and with good reason. Subjects correspond to academic
disciplines that elaborate particular ways of viewing the world

20
 (e.g., historical, literary or cultural, scientific), while introducing
particular codes (e.g., mathematical models, hermeneutic inter-
pretations of texts). The way individual subjects are demarcated
within a general area of learning e.g., whether the natural scien-
ces are split up or taught together, and how the relationship bet-
ween politics, history and geography is addressed has been de-
bated many times and is dealt with differently from state to state,
but the schools must, in principle, use these world view systems as
a guide if they are to form connections with cultural traditions and
discourses from other areas of life.
Systems that have been developed in relation to a specific subject
or content area must also be utilised in educational standards.
Moreover, in order to focus teaching and learning, educational
standards should delineate the core ideas of the subject or group
of subjects in question with particular clarity. These core ideas
include basic concepts (e.g., the idea of epochs in history, the con-
cept of functions in mathematics, and the notion of types of texts
appropriate to situation and register in the philological subjects),
the mental operations and processes associated with these, and
basic knowledge related to them.
Special educational standards for key qualifications, such as lear-
ning ability, problem solving, creative thinking, organised work
and cooperation, are therefore of little value. Cross-curricular edu-
cational goals such as these should, however, be included in stan-
dards for the individual content areas. Standards for mathematics
and science instruction, for instance, may reflect how well students
are able to deal with open-ended problems and the extent to
which they are able to communicate their ideas and solutions to
others.

Characteristic 2: Focus
One of the great disadvantages of traditional curricula consists in
their desire to be all-inclusive, especially when they intend to grant
teachers the freedom to pick and choose. Being open to all possi-
ble instructional variants will tend to reduce, rather than enhance,
the value of a curriculum or indeed of a textbook as a guide for
teachers. As a result, the call for slimming down or tidying up
the curricula has been a constant for years now in state plans for
curriculum reform. It is vital that educational standards, in particu-
lar, focus on key aspects. Standards determine what will be binding
for all and thereby grant teachers the freedom to shape and sup-
plement this core, without offering a confusing and arbitrary ran-
ge of options.

21
 Characteristic 3: Cumulativity
Educational standards stipulate which overall competencies are to
have been acquired by a particular point in time. In so doing, they
go beyond the requirements made of students in a particular grade
or even in a single teaching unit, the usual object of performance
evaluation. What is of interest here is not material that has been
learned for a test and then forgotten, but rather the development
of general competencies in fundamental areas that can be used
and tested over a long period of time. This means that educational
standards are directed at cumulative learning, in which content
and processes build on one another and are systematically inter-
linked, used repeatedly, and maintained in an active state.
In his influential publications, Weinert (e.g., 2001) has indicated
repeatedly that the partialisation of learning experiences into indi-
vidual segments with little connection to one another is one of the
biggest problems of school-based learning. Many of the test items
used in the TIMS and PISA studies, on the other hand, required
that associations be made and that students apply knowledge and
skills from widely varying subject domains. Baumert and others
(1997, 2000, 2001) regard the poor results of German students in
these tests as evidence for the lack of cumulativity in school-based
learning.

Characteristic 4: Binding for all

Should educational standards stipulate a level below which no
student should fall (minimum standards), an intermediate level
that should be achieved on average (norm standards), or an ideal
(maximum standards)? Various solutions are, in principle,
possible. However, this report strongly recommends the establish-
ment of a binding minimum level of proficiency in national stan-
dards for Germany. Competency models and the associated tasks
(operationalisations) would then specify in plain terms the perfor-
mance a student would need to deliver in order to satisfy the mini-
mum requirements. (This does not preclude the establishment of
additional, higher levels as the targets of further learning proces-
ses and in order to differentiate between groups of learners; see
point 5 below.)
This concentration on minimum standards is the key to quality
assurance in education. It is directed at ensuring that weaker
students, in particular, are not left behind. The minimum expecta-
tions should be clear to every school, every teacher and every stu-
dent. Since the German education system, in contrast to those of
other industrialised nations, displays particular deficits in the

22
 lower levels of performance, this characteristic is of the utmost
importance. Formulating educational goals and minimum require-
ments that would be binding nationally, regardless of school type
and would then influence curriculum development, instructional
and support concepts, school evaluations and other aspects could
make a decisive contribution to reducing disparities in the educa-
tion system.
Norm standards, which specify an average level of achievement,
implicitly convey the message that a kind of normal distribution of
competencies is anticipated, and that there will always be winners
and losers relative to the norm. It is not without reason that
Sweden, for instance, switched from this kind of an evaluative
model for national performance assessments to stipulating mini-
mum criteria for passing (and additional criteria for passing with
honours). The question of what weaker students must know and
be able to do in order to be considered successful, a question that
is key to helping these students, cannot be answered with norm
standards - at least not in positive terms. Maximum standards
result to an even greater extent in requirements for lower perfor-
mance levels being described only in negative terms, that of the
degree of their deviation from the ideal.
The schools often take a deficit-oriented approach to the day-to-day
examination and evaluation of student performance as well.
Students who perform the tasks assigned to the whole class to the
teachers full satisfaction receive the top grade; each lower grade
reflects the number and the significance of the mistakes made. By
providing a positive description of competencies, however, and
particularly of minimum requirements, educational standards
should counteract this deficit-orientation.

Characteristic 5: Differentiation
It is of course important for quality development as a whole that
stronger students in particular be asked to meet requirements
exceeding the minimum criteria. Individual schools should also be
able to develop their own profiles by, for instance, concentrating
on the fields of mathematics and the natural sciences and setting
their students particularly high requirements in these areas. Com-
petency models that describe the spectrum of competencies in a
performance domain, broken down into subdimensions and levels,
permit embellishments and profile-building of this kind. Schools
can, for instance, formulate goals that define the proportion of
students expected to reach the highest proficiency levels and then
monitor this achievement with assessments.

23
 The authors of this report do not, however, believe that it would
make sense to include additional expectations of this kind in the
educational standards themselves, especially on the national level.
Standards specify the basic structure of competencies that are to be
imparted and establish a mandatory minimum. Further specifica-
tions are left to the states and, ultimately, the individual schools
i.e., the institutions that decide on specific curricula (content and
its sequencing) and are responsible for certification (whether on
the basis of centralised state-wide examinations or final examina-
tions drawn up by the individual schools). Educational standards
should be designed in such a way that more wide-ranging expec-
tations and profile-building, curricula and certification require-
ments can build on them by, for instance, being based on the key
principles of the content area and the competency models. The
educational standards themselves, however, should not include
additional specifications.
The common language of educational standards, the articulation
of educational goals and minimum standards mandatory throug-
hout Germany, would be a significant step forward in terms of
general quality assurance of the education system. Furthermore,
the option of developing expanded school profiles would reflect
the federal organisation of Germanys education system and its
division into streamed types.

Characteristic 6: Comprehensibility
Educational standards will represent an improvement in the
management of our schools only if they are clearer and more com-
prehensible than most of the traditional curricula and guidelines.
The presentation of the standards will play a key role in ensuring
that they are acknowledged and accepted by both teachers and the
public at large. Great Britains experience, for instance, demonstra-
tes that this is not easily achieved: the countrys nationally binding
core curriculum has gradually become much more detailed and is
now regarded by some as a hindrance. The national requirements
(which go by various names) of the Scandinavian countries and
some of the Canadian provinces are, on the other hand, persuasive
examples of standards that articulate the educational mission of
the schools in very concise and precise terms.

Characteristic 7: Feasibility
Educational standards should set realistic goals that can be attain-
ed by students under the conditions currently prevailing in schools,

24
 and it should also be possible for teachers to translate these goals
into appropriate classroom activities (see also NRC 1999).
One of the most interesting findings of the extended national sur-
veys for TIMSS and PISA was the realisation that teachers, content
specialists and curriculum experts commonly overestimated the
probability of a given task being performed correctly most fre-
quently in the areas especially typical of tasks assigned in everyday
classroom practice. This suggests that we can anticipate unrealisti-
cally high requirements whether these describe minimum expec-
tations or expanded profiles being set, especially in the early
stages of the development of educational standards in Germany.
While educational standards should of course represent a chal-
lenge for both teachers and students, unrealistically high expecta-
tions lead to demotivation and would jeopardise the acceptance of
the standards. Consequently, the level of competency requirements
cannot be definitively determined until empirical findings are
available.
Examples of unrealistic expectations can be found in the No Child
Left Behind Act that was passed in the United States early in 2002
and in the education policy benchmarks that were suggested by
the European Commission in November 2002. The US law calls on
all of the American states to develop standards and associated
assessment programmes and in accordance with their own crite-
ria to establish minimum expectations for basic competencies,
particularly for reading ability. The law expects the individual
schools to then steadily reduce, year after year, the proportion of
students who fail to attain the minimum level. Experts have poin-
ted out that linear developments of this kind are extremely
improbable at the school level over a ten-year period. The Euro-
pean Commission, meanwhile, expects all of the European Unions
member states to halve by 2010 the number of 15-year-olds not per-
forming beyond the lowest proficiency level in the PISA reading
literacy assessment. In Germany this implies an improvement in
the performance of the weaker students comparable to the pro-
gress made over at least an entire school year. An increase this
dramatic among students who are currently in primary school
would be virtually impossible, even if the most massive reform
efforts were undertaken.
Education policymakers and the educational authorities would
therefore do well to articulate realistic goals if output-driven con-
trol of the education system is to succeed in setting processes of
change in motion.

25
 2.3 Variants of the Term (Educational) Standards
in the International Debate
Widely varying types of educational standards have evolved in the
practice of different countries and in the specialist discussion. As
explained in the previous section, we concentrate in this report on
clarifying the schools pedagogical responsibilities, which are to
be fulfilled by defining concrete competency requirements for stu-
dents.
Until recently, the term standard was almost never used in Ger-
many in the field of education. In the English-speaking countries,
as well as in, for instance, the Netherlands, the term has been in
use for many years, though it is given various definitions. In order
to prevent misunderstandings, particularly with regard to the
international discussion, a brief overview is offered here.
The term standard (originally: flag to which troops rally; for the
German etymology, see Kluge 1999, p. 787) was first used in edu-
cation in England around 1860 in connection with a law that pro-
vided for primary school funding based on achievement. Six per-
formance levels, designated Standards IVI, were stipulated for
reading, writing and arithmetic proficiency, and school inspectors
were charged with assigning students to these levels (Aldrich
2000).
While this achievement-based system of funding was abolished in
England at the beginning of the 20th century, the term standards
still plays a key role in education policy in Great Britain (cf. Gold-
stein & Heath 2000). Work on national curricula and student per-
formance assessments has been in progress there since the end of
the 1980s, in the course of output-driven education reform introdu-
ced by the Thatcher government and continued by New Labour.
The centralised school-monitoring agency is called the Office for
Standards in Education (OFSTED). One of the primary goals of
English education policy is to raise standards. In general, what is
meant by this is that the actual performance level of the schools
should be improved. This means that standards contrary to
what we recommend are understood not as performance targets,
but as the (average) actual performance level attained by students.
This understanding of the term standards, geared to actual per-
formance rather than normative stipulations, was also employed
by the OECD in its very influential publication Schools and Quali-
ty (OECD 1989), although it did note that the term was multiface-
ted and ambiguous. A fairly uniform international trend towards

26
 letting learning outcomes drive the education system became
apparent as early as the end of the 1980s, as did an emphasis on
the key role of individual schools for quality development.
Corresponding reforms were indeed observed in many countries
in the 1980s and 1990s. The concept of standards plays an impor-
tant role in these, and a norm-related interpretation of the term
has become established everywhere except in Great Britain. Stan-
dards are now understood internationally as normative require-
ments used to manage education systems.
The variations found in the different countries can be distin-
guished by the following three questions:
1. Do the standards relate to the input and processes of school-
based learning (e.g., the funding of the schools, the way in
which instruction is designed, the qualification of teachers) or
to its output (primarily its learning outcomes)? In the former
case, where learning opportunities for children and adolescents
are spelled out, Americans talk about opportunity-to-learn stan-
dards.

Internationally, standards usually refer to outcome norms. This

type is subdivided according to the following:
2. How abstractly are the standards formulated? On the level of
general educational goals and values? On the level of more or
less domain-specific competencies? On the level of learning
goals and content (content standards)? Or on the level of test
scores, where the standard can be set at a cut-off point on the
assessment scale (performance standards)?
3. What target level is specified: a basic level that should be
achieved by (almost) all students (minimum standards), an ideal
(maximum standards), or more of an average anticipated level?
(The latter are referred to in the following as norm standards.)

The authors of this report take a position on each of these ques-

tions. Educational standards as we define them are outcome-rela-
ted. They are directed at domain-specific competencies, but can be
expanded on, so to speak, both upwards and downwards: they
are based on general educational goals and can, in principle, be
operationalised in tasks and assessment scales. We also recom-
mend distinguishing between various proficiency levels in compe-
tency models, while identifying a particular level as the minimum
standard.

27
 Other countries have dealt with these issues differently. In some
cases, different kinds of standards coexist side by side, although the
terms used to describe them differ. Swedens national curricu-
lum, for instance, targets the achievement of rather abstract edu-
cational goals and resembles what we call educational standards.
In addition, Sweden also spells out specific test performance para-
meters for national student performance surveys that specify a
minimum standard (pass) and a higher level of achievement
(pass with distinction).
In the United States, the term standards has traditionally been
used largely synonymously with performance standards (cf. McLeod,
Stake, Schapelle, Mellissinos & Gierl 1996), and the primary focus
has been on measuring performance, with basic skills being a par-
ticular object of investigation. The publication of the very influenti-
al Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics by
the NCTM, the national association of mathematics teachers, in
1989 (see Chapter 3) changed this and not only for mathematics,
since the NCTM standards became the model for work on stan-
dards in other subjects as well (Ravitch 1995). The authors of the
NCTM publication made a conscious decision to abandon the tradi-
tional approach, with its concentration on basic skills, for a view of
mathematics learning that was more process-oriented. Investiga-
ting and discovering mathematical connections and relationships
was intended to facilitate comprehension-oriented learning. The
NCTM standards do not include testing requirements (and the
NCTM has not yet published any test-based standards in the tradi-
tional sense); rather, they put forth a vision of what good mathe-
matics instruction should be and therefore serve as standards for
the professional activity of mathematics teachers (opportunity-to-
learn standards). At the same time, however, they are also content
standards, as they specify the educational content to be covered in
mathematics instruction.
The application of a particular concept of standards is usually mo-
tivated by different cultural and political traditions and manage-
ment models, as the following examples taken from the United
States and Scandinavia demonstrate.
Schooling and instruction in the United States has always been
less the product of national guidelines or state regulations than of
districts and schools, whose autonomy plays an important role in
the drafting and implementation of curricula. As a result, the
NCTM standards aim to improve instructional quality across the
board, with uniform norms for content, as well as for teaching

28
 methods and student assessment. The NCTM standards enjoy great
acceptance, partly because they emerged in the context of a so-
cietal process in which standards-based reforms were deemed
necessary in all areas of instruction. Here the focus was on the
disproportionate diversity of educational programmes in a very
decentralised or locally managed system, the output of which as
recorded in, for instance, the results of international comparative
surveys was considered inadequate. The reforms therefore aimed
at enabling all students to meet higher standards, which were to
be attained through the use of interesting and ambitious content
and included the application of theoretical knowledge to practical
problems drawn from life (McLaughlin & Shepard 1995).
A study by Swanson and Stevenson (2002) uses 22 different indica-
tors to represent the extent to which the individual states of the
United States had initiated work on or implemented reform-based
standards by 1996. The indicators utilised here include curriculum
adaptation, descriptions of competency levels, the introduction of
uniform assessment methods, and the professionalism of teachers.
The study shows that the indicators related to mathematics tea-
ching had been implemented best. It further identifies pronounced
differences between the individual states. Maryland, Alabama and
Kentucky take a clear lead in regard to the range of activities and
products. A more detailed examination of the standards of these
states reveals, however, an orientation towards test performance
and the reduction of the curriculum to a minimum in terms of
content. This finding indicates that actual implementation of the
standards-based curricula under discussion has tended to lead to
very limited standards, which, with regard to mathematics instruc-
tion, stand in stark contrast to the standards of the NCTM. In par-
ticular, the original intention of uniting ambitious content and
realistic tasks has disappeared.
The basic idea behind Swedens national curriculum was on anoth-
er level from the outset. Here, the intention was to strengthen the
autonomy of the schools and to take students individuality into
account. Attention was to be paid to the cultural heritage, the
internationalisation of society and the education system, techno-
logical and industrial change, and environmental factors. Other
northern European countries share this view. Proposed changes to
the education system in Finland, for instance, were based on sim-
ilar considerations. Flexibility and individual options against the
backdrop of increasing globalisation became key elements of the
reforms. At the same time, reformers aimed at decentralising de-
cision-making processes with respect to the curriculum. This gene-

29
 ral tendency, however, has been counterbalanced recently by the
nation-wide definition of core curricula, core competencies and
corresponding competency levels (see Linnakyl, in preparation).
These examples show that standards can be based on widely vary-
ing theoretical assumptions, values and societal goals. However,
these assumptions, values and goals have a profound impact on the
acceptance of standards, their implementation in the schools, and
the potential for working with them on an everyday basis.

30
 3. Examples: Standards and Curricula in
Mathematics Education
The discussion on standards for mathematics literacy began much
earlier in many other countries than it did in Germany. This dis-
cussion focuses less on isolated content than on competencies to be
acquired by students. A number of countries have now drawn up
detailed competency-based standards of this kind and gathered
experience with their actual implementation, making the field of
mathematics well suited to this chapters concrete illustration of
the concept of educational standards.
It must, however, be kept in mind that the terminology used for
standards and curricula is construed differently in the various coun-
tries (see Section 2.3 above). What our report refers to as educatio-
nal standards go by names such as standards or the national cur-
riculum in other countries. What matters is whether and how the
following key components are involved: (a) an orientation towards
educational goals, (b) competency models and (c) specific require-
ments, operationalised by tasks and assessment programmes.
We begin in Section 3.1 with the extremely influential Principles
and Standards of the American association of mathematics
teachers and didactics experts, the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (NCTM). In Section 3.2, we use the example of two
Canadian provinces to describe how the ideas of the NCTM were
transferred both to curricula (Alberta) and to concrete perfor-
mance expectations (Ontario). Section 3.3 addresses the develop-
ments in Europe, while Section 3.4 examines the tradition of curri-
culum development in Germany. The PISA studys contribution to
the development of competency models will be dealt with else-
where (in Section 6.2).

3.1 The NCTMs Principles and Standards as a Framework

for Modern Mathematics Education
The standards that have recently been developed for mathematics
instruction attempt to describe mathematics literacy across the
different stages of the school career. The Principles and Standards
of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which were
published in 2000, are the best-known and most influential ex-
ample internationally. The NCTM is the major professional associa-
tion for mathematics education in the United States; its members
include both mathematics teachers and academics working on the

31
 didactics of the subject. Following a broad discussion within this
professional community and preliminary work that appeared as
early as the mid-1980s, the Principles and Standards collected here
describe framework conditions for instruction on all grade levels,
from the beginning of primary education, including pre-kinder-
garten, to the end of secondary schooling. These standards, which
have received widespread attention, aim to provide guidelines for
improving mathematics teaching by moving towards comprehen-
sion- and problem-based instruction. Accordingly, they can essen-
tially be considered a vision of what constitutes ideal practice
(Tate, in preparation). They incorporate core ideas from the fields
of subject didactics, pedagogy and learning psychology, and are
thus based on a concrete theory of teaching and learning.
The Principles are cross-curricular guidelines for good teaching, for-
mulated in terms of specific content. In the context of the termino-
logy explained above (Section 2.3), they can thus be considered a
kind of opportunity-to-learn standard. The actual Standards, on the
other hand, are typical of content standards. They are more specific
to their field and address both concrete material and the processes
and methods to be applied. The Principles and Standards of
modern mathematics education form a unified whole in all areas
and are characterised by extensive interconnections.
The Principles include the following fundamental, general edu-
cational features:
the Equity Principle, which states that all students must have
opportunities to study and support to learn mathematics;
the Curriculum Principle, which argues that mathematics instruc-
tion must focus on important content that is interesting to both
the individual and society and is conveyed in a coherent and
comprehensive way;
the Teaching Principle, which emphasises the need for mathe-
matics to be taught by people who have a profound knowledge
and understanding of mathematics, of students as learners and
of pedagogical strategies;
the Learning Principle, which underscores the importance of lear-
ning mathematics with understanding:
the Assessment Principle, which promotes the constant moni-
toring of performance levels attained; the form of assessment
used must, however, reflect the fact that mathematics education
is directed at processes of understanding and not primarily at
factual knowledge; and

32
 the Technology Principle, which makes a case for the responsible
use of technology by students.
The Standards describe what instruction should enable all students
to know and be able to do (p. 29). They are divided into two parts:
a content section that identifies topics typically addressed in the
mathematics classroom and a more methods- or process-oriented
section that assembles important fields of application of mathe-
matics instruction. Content areas include: (1) numbers and opera-
tions, (2) patterns, functions and algebra, (3) geometry and spatial
orientation, (4) measurement and (5) data analysis, statistics and
probability. The methods-oriented section focuses on problem
solving, reasoning and proof, communication, connections and
representation. Accordingly, the content section describes what
students should learn, and the process-oriented section identifies
ways in which content knowledge can be acquired and applied.
Compiling these different areas under the one heading Standards
demonstrates that mathematical content and subject-specific
skills form an instructional whole. It is also significant that the
Standards are not formulated solely for a particular grade. Rather,
they define the content and methods that should characterise all
mathematics education from the outset, right through to the com-
pletion of upper secondary schooling. The NCTMs publication con-
tains many examples that translate this underlying idea into prac-
tice for the various grades, always with a view to building on the
knowledge that has already been acquired.
In the context of this report, the Standards can be understood as a
kind of competency model. Together, the five content elements
and the five process elements describe what constitutes mathe-
matical thought and work. The consistent structure of all ten ele-
ments across every grade from kindergarten to the end of high
school (K-12) represents a concept of systematic, cumulative lear-
ning for the entire school career.
The NCTM has not transferred the Principles and Standards to
assessment programmes and performance standards, although
recommendations for the design of performance assessments have
been made. Their comprehensive publication does, however, con-
tain sample items that elucidate the aims, content and methods of
each area. The task shown in Figure 1, for instance, is intended to
illustrate what it means to understand numbers, ways of repre-
senting numbers, relationships among numbers, and number
systems. It demonstrates that typical requirements include open-
ended tasks, multiple solutions and justifications.

33
 Fig. 1: Understand numbers, ways of representing numbers,
relationships among numbers, and number systems (NCTM 2000)

3.2 The Application of Standards in Canada

The 1997 curriculum of the Canadian province of Alberta makes
explicit reference to the NCTM standards. The basic structure of
the curriculum is characterised by mathematical content areas
(e.g., numbers, operations with numbers, measurement), each of
which is described for the various grades and linked with the
respective mathematical processes (e.g., communicating mathe-
matical ideas, making connections between mathematical con-
cepts, estimating and doing mental mathematics). This approach
makes it clear how content areas are developed across the grade
levels, while ensuring that content and processes are always per-
ceived in relation to one another.
Here too in clear reference to the Principles and Standards of the
NCTM the consistent application of the general framework across
all grades is apparent. The content areas numbers, patterns and
relations, shape and space, and statistics and probability, which are
regarded as the formal structure on which mathematics is built,
extend throughout the various grades. This content is influenced

34
 by mathematical processes and big ideas (the nature of mathema-
tics; see Fig. 2). The processes entail widely varying aspects, such as
communicating mathematical ideas, identifying connections bet-
ween various mathematical concepts and between mathematics
and everyday life, using estimation and mental mathematics,
understanding mathematics as problem solving, mathematical
reasoning and justification, the appropriate use of computers and
calculators and using appropriate visualisation. Mathematical pro-
cesses play a large role in shaping the implementation of the
curriculum, and are relevant to both the achievement of specific
instructional goals and the promotion of lifelong learning.
Many of the definitions of these processes were drawn from the
Principles and Standards of the NCTM. Finally, the mathematical
big ideas include concepts such as change, constancy or invarian-
ce, dimension, number, pattern, quantity, relationships, shape
and uncertainty.

Fig. 2: Alberta Mathematics Program of Studies, Kindergarten to Grade 12

(http://www.learning.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/math/)

This curriculum specifies concrete goals for mathematics literacy.

These are formulated in terms of general instructional outcomes,
and they describe what students should know and be able to do at
the end of a particular grade. Albertas curriculum thereby encom-
passes both educational standards and a competency model, as
conceived of in this report. It goes further than this, however, since
it like a curriculum also incorporates a concrete schedule for
classroom activities.

35
 The 1997 curriculum for the province of Ontario is formulated in
similar terms, although its operationalisation of specific require-
ments is even more precise. The key elements here are what is
expected of students and their performance levels. The curriculum
sets out the knowledge that students are expected to acquire, as
well as corresponding skills and abilities that relate to classroom
work, tests and other assessment methods. Performance is divided
into four achievement levels, and is considered in each of the fol-
lowing categories: problem solving, comprehension of concepts,
application of mathematical procedures and communication of
knowledge. Figure 3 shows the achievement levels for the example
of problem solving.

Fig. 3: Ontario Achievement Levels Mathematics (http://www.edu.gov.

on.ca/eng/document/curricul/curr97ma/achievem.html)

ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS: MATHEMATICS, GRADES 18

Know- Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4
ledge/
Skills
Problem The student solves problems:
solving
with assistance with limited independently independently
with a limited assistance by choosing by modifying
range of appro- with appro- the most appro- known strate-
priate strategies priate strategies priate strategies gies or
rarely accurately frequently usually creating new
accurately accurately strategies
almost always
accurately

3.3 Mathematics Curricula and Standards in Europe

In recent years, various European countries have also initiated eff-
orts to establish competency-based standards for their school
systems. The national curricula in Sweden and England represent
two very different examples of such standards. The Swedish curri-
culum has been in force since 1994, while the development of the
English curriculum can be traced back to debates on uniform per-
formance standards in the early 1980s. It was first implemented in
1988 and has since undergone various revisions and additions.
In Sweden, targets are set at two main levels: the level of general
values and norms underlying all instruction and the level of
instructional content. The first and higher level is set out in what is

36
 called the National Curriculum. The fundamental values that should
permeate instruction, the basic content and the guiding principles
of the school system are articulated here. These include very gene-
ral values facilitating peaceful and productive coexistence. The
national curriculum defines minimum goals that are to be
achieved by all students by the end of their school careers, inclu-
ding the conscious support of ethical norms, the ability to commu-
nicate in a foreign language, and for mathematics the knowled-
ge of elementary mathematical concepts and the ability to apply
these. The various subjects are only discussed in terms of these few
sentences in this curriculum.
The Syllabus as a supplement (the second level) identifies goals spe-
cific to individual subjects, describes the subjects role in general
education, and explains its relationship to the fundamental values
and norms. The Syllabus also includes a minimum catalogue of
knowledge that is to have been acquired by the end of the fifth
and the ninth grades of ordinary schooling. Figure 4 lists the objec-
tives that are to have been met by the end of the ninth grade in
the case of mathematics.
The upper secondary school Syllabus for mathematics also compri-
ses assessment criteria for determining when a student has passed
a course, and when she or he has passed with distinction or with
special distinction. These can be interpreted as levels of mathema-
tics competency.
Taken together, the Swedish curriculum documents may indeed be
understood as educational standards of the kind described by this
report. However, the competency models here have not been for-
mulated in anything like the detail found in the North American
examples.
Englands National Curriculum is even more clearly geared towards
competency levels. It contains content and performance objectives
and also indicates how a particular performance is to be evaluated.
As with the Swedish example, this curriculum is based on a clearly
articulated system of values that views education as a route to
spiritual, moral, social, cultural, physical and mental development
and thus to individual well-being. The preamble introduces and
explores these thoughts, placing them in the context of school and
family. The subject-related content (programmes of study) is fairly
concise and is operationalised primarily through performance
goals, or attainment targets, and the associated competency
levels, or level descriptions. Accordingly, these attainment targets
are formulated in very concrete terms and in some cases identify

37
 Fig. 4: Syllabuses for the Compulsory School. Skolverket and Fritzes
2001. (http://www.skolverket.se/english/publ.shtml)
Goals that pupils should have attained by the end of the ninth
year in school
Pupils should have acquired the knowledge in mathematics nee-
ded to be able to describe and manage situations, as well as solve
problems that occur regularly in the home and society, which is
needed as a foundation for further education.
Within this framework, pupils should
have developed their understanding of numbers to cover whole
and rational numbers in fraction and decimal form,
have good skills in and be able to make estimates and calculation
of natural numbers, numbers in decimal form, as well as percen-
tages and proportions in their head, with the help of written cal-
culation methods and technical aids,
be able to use methods, measuring systems and instruments to
compare, estimate and determine length, area, volume, angles,
quantities, points in time and time differences,
be able to reproduce and describe important properties of some
common geometrical objects, as well as be able to interpret and
use drawings and maps,
be able to interpret, compile, analyse, and evaluate data in tables
and diagrams,
be able to use the concept of probability in simple random situa-
tions,
be able to interpret and use simple formulae, solve simple equa-
tions, as well as be able to interpret and use graphs for functions
describing real relationships and events.

individual content areas. Regular assessments involving all schools

operationalise these goals and give the schools feedback on the
competency levels achieved by their students.

3.4 Developments in Germany: From Detailed Curricula

to Competency-Based Framework Plans and
Examination Requirements
Apart from the most recent initiatives, which will be discussed in
the last chapter under Section 12.1, no educational standards have

38
 as yet been published in Germany. It is therefore all the more
important that we take a look at past work on curriculum develop-
ment.
German curricula or framework guidelines specify the goals and
content to be dealt with in the classroom in particular subjects,
grades and school types in a given state. They change over time
to reflect societal trends and developments in pedagogy, didactics
and the individual subjects. Although the curricula or framework
guidelines differ considerably from state to state in some respects,
similar developmental tendencies can be observed over the course
of time.
Inspection of the mathematics curricula in force in the West Ger-
man states and the GDR in the late 1960s and the 1970s shows that
these were characterised by a focus on conceptual aspects and ana-
lytical considerations. Furthermore, the guidelines were very
detail-driven. They proposed or prescribed goals and content, as
well as methods and corresponding assessments that were deemed
to be suitable by the authors, to a more or less explicit degree,
depending on the state.
More than a decade later, in the 1990s, the curricula began to
move away from this detail-oriented approach in favour of more
general goals, a change that was reflected in their very length. In
essence, these curricula focus on content and leave the actual
elaboration of this content largely in the hands of teachers. The
information often seems to have been tacked together rather ran-
domly, however; as a result, a clear picture (and thus a pedagogical
or didactic theory of teaching and learning) fails to emerge.
The plans for a new curriculum for the Gymnasium, or academic-
track secondary school, in Bavaria that are currently under discus-
sion have broken with the strict division into content and its expli-
cation. The proposed curriculum is confined to identifying the
instructional content and recommended numbers of lesson hours
for relatively large topic blocks. More attention is paid to students
activity, as expressed in, for instance, the call for students to dis-
cover mathematics content. This suggests the influence however
limited of trends that conceive of teaching and learning as a con-
structive process, and of a more process- and less product-oriented
view of mathematics. Similar tendencies can be observed in many
of the German states. Schleswig-Holsteins 2002 curriculum first
looks at the competencies that a particular topic is to impart, and
only then distinguishes between content and suggestions for class-

39
 room practice in a particular subject. Finally, Mecklenburg-West
Pomeranias new curriculum for the orientation phase, the tran-
sition grades between primary and secondary school, considers the
acquisition of cross-curricular competencies to be a primary aim of
school-based instruction. However, in contrast to the view taken in
this report, competency in this context is understood as cross-curri-
cular performance skills that involve technical, methodological,
personal and social competence.
Overall, the trend in curriculum development over the past 25
years can certainly be regarded in a very positive light. Subject-
oriented framework guidelines that attempted to exercise a high
degree of control over instruction have evolved into recommenda-
tions that give increasing priority to students and their learning
processes. However, even though the evolution of curricula and
framework guidelines reflects a move away from attempts to con-
trol the details of the work done in schools, they still fail to define
educational standards. As a rule, curricula describe the require-
ments for a particular subject and a particular grade within a
course of education and could therefore serve, at most, as a basis
for a definition of standards. They lack the fundamental com-
ponents and features described in Sections 2.1 and 2.2 as being
essential to educational standards.
The agreements on school-leaving certification signed by all of
Germanys state ministers of education come closest to a concept of
educational standards in Germany. For mathematics instruction,
the 2002 Einheitliche Prfungsanforderungen in der Abiturprfung,
the uniform examination requirements for the school-leaving
exam that follows attendance at a Gymnasium, constitute a step in
the direction of establishing appropriate standards. They are based
to a large extent on general content that ought to play a role in
instruction from the outset, and have at least to some degree aban-
doned the much criticised approach of breaking down compulsory
content into small incremental steps in favour of establishing over-
arching, cross-curricular links between subjects. Both subject-rela-
ted methodological competencies and subject-specific content are,
for instance, subsumed under the rubric Subject-Specific Content and
Qualifications. Aspects of methodological competency include the
ability to create mathematical models of real-world phenomena,
mathematical reasoning and justification, and selecting, using and
evaluating information. Subject-specific content is still drawn from
the traditional fields of analysis, linear algebra and stochastics, but
is now grouped under guiding principles that highlight their signi-
ficance and their development in the curriculum. The resultant

40
 tasks tend to be formulated in an open-ended manner and, as a
rule, explicitly permit a variety of solutions. Each is assigned to a
requirement category, which can be viewed as a kind of proficien-
cy model or competency level model. Moreover, the examination
requirements also include criteria that allow the attainment of a
desired level of competency to be checked.
These uniform examination requirements for mathematics are not
and do not claim to be educational standards. However, they alrea-
dy include significant elements of such standards and are probably
the most consistently elaborated example available in Germany for
the discipline of mathematics.

41
 4. The Significance of Standards for the
Further Development of Schools and Teaching
In essence, the function of educational standards can be summed
up in one sentence: They are a clear and concise statement of what
matters in our school system. They translate the schools educational
mission into concrete terms for key areas of learning and thus gear
teaching and learning towards shared goals.
This orientation function benefits students and their parents, while
also serving to improve the professional expertise of educators and
quality development on the institutional level.
Translated into assessment programmes, standards are used for
educational monitoring and the evaluation of schools. These serve
to ascertain and assess learning outcomes, and this feedback func-
tion contributes to the output-driven management of the schools.
Feedback and an output-related approach are, however, not an end
in themselves. The aim is to examine the effects (and side effects)
of teaching and instruction and thus to facilitate a professional,
rational approach. Assessments conducted at schools are useful
only if they help to promote the professional expertise of the tea-
ching staff and further the quality development of schools and
classroom instruction. We will discuss this subject in more detail
elsewhere (Chapters 9 and 11).
This chapter addresses the working and living environment of the
schools. How is it influenced by the introduction of educational
standards? What are the consequences of educational standards
for students, parents and teachers? And what functions should
standards and standards-based tests not be asked to perform?

4.1 Educational Standards from the Perspective

of Students and Their Parents
Educational standards should be formulated in such a way that
they are comprehensible to parents and to students in at least the
higher grades. The standards should communicate to these groups
more clearly than has previously been the case which competen-
cies matter at school and how these are to be developed over the
course of a students educational career. It should also be made
clear from the outset that educational standards aim at a new kind
of participation and involvement on the part of students and their
parents, which means, for example, an increased responsibility for
planning, supervising and monitoring learning processes. At the

42
 same time, the school will commit itself to working towards speci-
fic goals and to providing the academic support necessary to
achieve these. Standards can thereby serve as a point of reference
for discussions between parents, students and teachers. Clear and
binding expectations will make it possible to plan an individual
learning path, recognise impediments to learning, and agree on
the best possible options for supplementary support measures.
Taking basic dimensions of competency development as a guide,
rather than a traditional, detailed catalogue of learning objectives
and content, will facilitate such discussions.
The schools goals and requirements thus become transparent for
all those involved. Especially if minimum standards are established,
questions will arise as to how learning outcomes are to be assessed.
However, a clear distinction must be made between the discussion
of the quality of learning outcomes, on the one hand, and the
awarding of grades, the issuing of certificates and decisions on
student streaming, on the other. Standards should be criteria for
evaluating the learning outcomes evidenced by each school, each
class and, logically, each student. They should not, however, be con-
fused with grading and examination regulations, and certainly not
with provisions regulating the assignment of students to a particu-
lar secondary school track.
For one thing, as we have already indicated, educational standards
do not cover the entire curriculum, but instead apply to core areas
in key learning domains. Further, decisions on grades and the issu-
ing of school-leaving certificates must, for good reason, be made
independently by teachers as part of their pedagogical responsibili-
ty, according to professional criteria and upon consideration of a
wide variety of factors. For both of these reasons, educational stan-
dards should not be misused as criteria for grading, certification or
tracking decisions.
This differentiation assumes even greater importance when stan-
dards-based assessments become involved. Experience with high
stakes assessment in the United States has exposed the negative con-
sequences of misusing centralised testing to make scholastic de-
cisions about individual students. The assessments begin to domi-
nate classroom instruction - which can be quite productive in the
case of intelligent assessments that allow scope for complex
thought, problem solving and creativity, but can be disastrous in
the case of poor assessments. An additional problem is that tests
that have been developed for educational monitoring and school
evaluation are usually not at all appropriate for diagnosing the

43
 competencies of individual students, since each student works on
only a small selection of the total item pool and the margin of
error in the evaluation of individual performance scores is too high
(see Chapter 9). We therefore strongly advise that the application
of standards-based tests for evaluation, educational monitoring and
(if methodologically permissible) as a factor in decisions on special
assistance for individual students (see Chapter 9) be clearly separa-
ted from grading and school-leaving exams. This is one argument
for not carrying out testing cycles in the final year of secondary
schooling.
We want to make it very clear that we do not believe that educatio-
nal standards should be used to increase performance and tracking
pressures on individual students. Germanys students, in compari-
son to those in other countries and/or cultures, already perceive
less support than pressure to perform, while the schools in the
Nordic and English-speaking countries, where standards and
school evaluations are familiar features, tend to be experienced as
supportive and approving. Educational standards could lead to
broad social acceptance of particular competency requirements,
with students, parents and teachers sharing responsibility for
achieving these outcomes.

4.2 Educational Standards from the Point of View

of Teachers
The concept of educational standards that we recommend specifi-
cally envisages outcome- rather than process-related standards
(opportunity-to-learn standards). Educational standards thus do not
imply any standardisation of teaching to conform to specific norms
or a levelling down of the profession. Standards emphasise the
responsibility of the schools and the teaching staff for learning out-
comes and, at the same time, create more scope for independent
teaching.
The introduction of educational standards will change the image
of professional expertise in the teaching profession. For teachers,
standards constitute not only another frame of reference for lesson
planning, but a greater degree of freedom, flexibility and responsi-
bility. The responsibility for structuring teaching and learning pro-
cesses, even to the point of drafting a school curriculum, will incre-
asingly be returned to the schools, although it may be given to
departments rather than to the individual teacher. In addition to
their own classroom teaching, an increasing degree of coordina-

44
 tion with the rest of the staff will characterise the professional lives
of teachers. Moreover, teachers will perform a key function as
advisors when it comes to students and parents using the stan-
dards to help with the planning and monitoring of the students
own learning. Additional tasks will include dealing with feedback
from evaluations and educational monitoring on the work of the
school and on the effectiveness of their teaching.
The standards provide teachers with a frame of reference for their
work. In contrast to curricula, which often go into too much detail
and list a vast number of individual learning content items and
goals, standards should give classroom instruction a clear focus.
They take as their basis the central ideas that constitute a subject
and describe the subdimensions and levels in which students com-
petencies evolve. That means that educational standards have at
their core a systematic concept of subject didactics that teachers
can use as a guide and explore in more detail in their own tea-
ching. The key ideas of the subject are elaborated in classroom
instruction, and the descriptions of the competency models outline
the fundamental concepts and operations to be addressed in the
classroom. When the design of sample items illustrating the com-
petency levels integral to the standards is intelligent and challen-
ging, these items can stimulate ideas for classroom activities and
lesson planning. By describing cumulative learning taking place
over a number of grades and competency levels, educational stan-
dards change the whole outlook on instruction: the concentration
on the subject to be learned and the system underlying it gives
way to a perspective that is more student-oriented, that is, geared
towards the cognitive development of learners.
By referring to competency models, teachers can classify various
learning paths and interindividual differences - that is, they are
able to comprehend the heterogeneity of learning processes and
learning outcomes. These benchmarks hone teachers diagnostic
skills. The minimum criteria, indicating that the lower threshold of
the standard has been attained, are particularly important here,
since the teacher can use these criteria to determine which stu-
dents require special support and assistance.
All of these guidelines are based on the performance targets, com-
petency models and minimum requirements that constitute educa-
tional standards. Backed up by the appropriate in-service training,
they can improve the subject-didactic awareness and the diagnostic
skills of educators. If standards-based tests are also implemented at
their schools in the context of a monitoring or assessment study,

45
 teachers are given the additional opportunity to compare their
own diagnostic conclusions with the test results. As explained
above, this should on no account give rise to grades, certification
or tracking recommendations being made dependent on centrali-
sed tests. Rather, the idea is that teachers should be confronted
with some kind of external standard for evaluating student compe-
tencies and given an indication of any bias in their own judge-
ments. In addition, surveys of this kind provide feedback on the
outcomes of their own pedagogical work.
All in all, educational standards call on teachers to rethink subject-
related (and cross-curricular) teaching and learning processes to
reflect clear goals, to take a differentiated approach to students
knowledge and abilities, to form a realistic idea of their own effec-
tiveness, and to cooperate in furthering the development of their
own professional expertise and that of their schools.
The requirements outlined here show that educational standards
not only entail new responsibilities for educators, but can bolster
their self-image as professionals. Some teachers may, nevertheless,
perceive them as a nuisance or as an imposition. Gaining the
acceptance of the staff is thus a key concern when implementing
standards. Teachers should be able to form a clear idea of the
short-term and long-term opportunities connected with the reinfor-
cement of their professional role through work with educational
standards. Above all, however, they must be given frameworks for
action that convey confidence and ensure that standards can be
used successfully. This means that specific tasks are in store for the
institutions that prepare and support the work done in the schools:
the school supervisory authorities, the state institutes for teacher
education and curriculum development, and the teacher training
institutions. In the long term, these institutions make up the infra-
structure that will be needed to support teachers and schools in
their work with standards (see Chapter 10).

4.3 Educational Standards and School Development

Individual schools have long also been viewed as a site of quality
development in the German education system. Many state initiati-
ves work to strengthen the individual schools, to improve the social
climate and school culture, to promote cooperation among mem-
bers of the teaching staff, to develop school profiles and open
schools up to the outside world. School development requires that
agreement be reached within the schools themselves on goals,

46
 responsibility, cooperation and accountability, as well as on dea-
ling with feedback. New methods for joint planning and coordina-
tion are developed, tested and then made part of the school rou-
tine. In this process, head teachers play a key role in terms of moti-
vation, coordination and integration, a role that goes far beyond
administrative functions. They must assume responsibility for the
organisation of the school and for the outcomes of its pedagogical
work and, at the same time, must ensure and respect the proper
participation of teachers, students and parents through democratic
processes.
School programmes are the primary medium in which strengths
and problem areas are identified, developmental goals are formu-
lated and measures are planned. All too often, however, school pro-
grammes are dominated by statements about the schools culture
as a whole and cross-curricular activities and projects. Subject-spe-
cific teaching and learning processes and the establishment of
competencies within learning areas often play a rather minor role
considering the vital importance of these issues for the success of
the schools and learning in these initiatives for internal school
development.
Educational standards challenge the schools to make the systema-
tic enhancement of student competencies the focus of school deve-
lopment. They provide a language and an analytical framework
that is suited to conceiving and describing continuous learning
processes across grades.
The teaching staff of each school will need to discuss and agree on
how the standards can be met and to plan transitions and connec-
tions between grades, thereby helping to establish and maintain
productive transitions between school forms (such as primary and
lower secondary schools). This harmonisation will result in the
emergence of a school curriculum for subject-related learning and
the linking of subjects, in addition to the general pedagogical
school programme, since the coexistence of national educational
standards and detailed curricular requirements on the state level
appears unlikely on the long term. Rather, the curricula and frame-
work guidelines will gradually become core curricula (see Chapter
8). Teachers will thus have to take on the new tasks of translating
the curriculum into concrete terms, but this will also give the
schools new scope for manoeuvre. It will increasingly be left up to
the individual schools to decide precisely how with what curri-
culum, course schedule for the various grades, and types of instruc-
tional organisation the competency goals can and should be

47
 achieved. In particular, each school will develop its own measures,
tailored to its own student population, for providing targeted, indi-
vidual support. In particular, the specification of minimum require-
ments will compel each school to assume individual responsibility
for assisting weaker students and to invest in such assistance.
Dealing with feedback from evaluations and educational monito-
ring will present schools with a new challenge. If educational stan-
dards imply output-oriented management of the schools, then
schools will analyse their strengths and weaknesses on a regular
basis three- to five-year cycles have become established in other
countries and will take the competencies acquired by their stu-
dents as one of the key criteria. (Chapter 9 discusses how this can
be done and which questions are to be addressed in the process.)
We believe that measuring learning outcomes (student competen-
cies) constitutes an opportunity for the schools to ascertain the
effectiveness of their own work and to give a professional response
to this information. Feedback should therefore be addressed to the
schools teaching staff and its boards, rather than be made public.
If the school supervisory authority is in place to provide support
and advice, it can also be involved. The kind of standards-based
competency assessments recommended here do not simply produ-
ce comparative data; rather, they provide information on strengths
and weaknesses in student competency profiles that can be vital to
designing the school curriculum and classroom instruction. Moreo-
ver, the significance of feedback as a potential tribute to the
achievements of the teaching staff should not be underestimated.

4.4 Educational Standards and Quality Development in

the Education System
Educational standards should be viewed as an instrument to pro-
mote educational equity system-wide. By deciding to establish edu-
cational standards on the national level, Germanys ministers of
education have declared their support for the goal of assuring
comparable educational quality in all of the countrys states, there-
by helping to achieve equal opportunity in education nation-wide.
Their decision is a response to the PISA studys finding that the
German education system is marked by great disparities between
regions and social groups. The minimum standards we recom-
mend, to be applied regardless of school type, highlight this aspect
but in conjunction with competency models specifying various
levels of proficiency also give additional scope for particular com-
petency profiles and further requirements.

48
 Educational standards will have far-reaching consequences for the
system that can be only partially set out in this report. The consi-
stent use of outcomes to manage the education system will require
new structures (see Chapter 11), but will also constitute a challenge
for the support systems (see Chapter 10). Not only teachers and
schools, but also the school supervisory authorities, the state edu-
cation institutes and other players, will find themselves playing
new roles. Textbook publishers, for instance, will have to adjust to a
less tightly regulated market, and funding bodies will be called
upon to provide the resources needed to meet the standards and,
above all, to offer individual support.
The introduction of educational standards sends a signal not only
to those directly involved in the educational process, but also to
the public at large, since society must provide for the systematic
enhancement of the competencies of children and teenagers. This
means that educational standards move the topic of education
up the political and social agenda, and also promote the social
debate on the significance of education and educational content.
This will be discussed in more detail in the following chapter.

49
 5. Educational Standards, Competency Models
and Educational Goals: Problems of
Construction and Legitimisation
There is no doubt that national educational standards should be
included in the goals and objectives of the education system, since
they set the standard for the schools performance and do it in
such a way that comparisons can be made between individuals.
However, this also makes educational standards a focus of societal
disputes over the goals of the schools and what, specifically, can be
expected of the education system and the competencies of its
graduates. This means that the difficult questions about the deve-
lopment, structural justification and political and social legitimi-
sation of educational goals that arise in connection with educatio-
nal issues as a whole also apply to national educational standards.
This report cannot and does not aim to provide a comprehensive
discussion of the general context of these issues or to resolve them
in every respect. In this chapter, however, we will address the speci-
fic problems and the unique opportunities that arise in connection
with the formulation of educational standards to clarify normative
expectations of the education system.
Two aspects in particular deserve our attention:
(1) Critics of educational standards fear that their introduction
might make it impossible to conduct a discussion of goals on
anything but a superficial level or without trivialising the role
of educational theory. These critics argue that expectations of
the education system will be eroded and curtailed by being
geared towards criteria of measurability and the difficulties of
comparing education systems.
(2) Others stress the advantages of being able to formulate precise
and measurable educational standards. They argue that devi-
sing and implementing educational standards can have a con-
structive and sobering influence on the discussion of the goals
of educational processes and can contribute to a realistic view
of what the education system can accomplish, and of its
achievements and deficits, particularly on the level of basic
general education.
The authoring panel believes that although the critics fears may
be understandable considering the tradition of social policy, peda-
gogical and education theory debates on goals, they underestimate
the weaknesses of the traditional targets set for education and,

50
 because of the obvious systematic difficulties of the debate on edu-
cational goals, fail to recognise the advantages of introducing edu-
cational standards.

5.1 Educational Standards and Educational Goals

With their goal of universalising basic skills in the education
system and, at the same time, making competence and competen-
cy levels measurable, educational standards face various types of
criticism. The various charges brought by critics can be classified as
follows: (1) reductionism, (2) uniformity and levelling out and (3)
deficient legitimisation.

(1) The charge of reductionism

With reference to education theory and the social policy debate on
goals for educational processes and systems, this charge has recent-
ly been voiced in conjunction with the PISA findings, in particular.
According to these critics, the orientation towards cultural basic
skills with its operationalisations in various dimensions of litera-
cy e.g., linguistic, mathematical or natural science comprehen-
sion fails to reflect modern general education (see Benner 2002
for an example of this part of the discussion in Germany). Concen-
trating on basic skills means not meeting essential expectations in
terms of the content, tasks, inherent gradations and practices of
educational processes. These expectations also determine the level
of literacy by, for instance, setting the stage for science-based lear-
ning that provides an introduction to the discipline. Critics locate
the structural source of this reductionism in, on the one hand, an
incorrect, exclusively practice-oriented or oversimplified basis in
education theory and, on the other, in what they regard as the
mistaken assumption that important expectations of school-based
learning processes can be operationalised to the extent that they
are actually measurable.

(2) The charge of uniformity and levelling out

The second charge takes the first as its starting point, and views
educational standards as the inadequate attempt to subordinate
the process of education, which should be understood largely as
individual, to standards that are generalised in terms of both the
pace at which competencies are to be acquired and the definition
and acceptance of outcomes. The charge of uniformity and level-
ling out is made in two ways, with reference to students and to
institutions, i.e., to the types of schools and their respective student

51
 populations and responsibilities and to their specific instructional
traditions and aspirations. The levelling process is also expected to
take place in two directions, both downwards and upwards:
high expectations, e.g., in German classes at the academic-track
secondary level, would be more or less eliminated in favour of a
simplified concept of linguistic understanding, while a model of
minimum expectations would become standard, a standard that
fails to take into account special situations or problems.

(3) The charge of deficient legitimisation

Finally, the charge of deficient legitimisation is made by those who
fear that experts and supranational commissions will end up domi-
nating the debate on education, while fundamental political issues,
education policy decisions in state parliaments and public dis-
cussion of the goals, norms and function of the schools will
although still extant become increasingly irrelevant. These voices
argue that if policymakers insist on introducing educational stan-
dards, this level of political, moral and public legitimisation of the
expectations placed on schools must not be bypassed. They believe
that it alone guarantees that criteria judged central to the work of
the schools, such as the issue of educational equity, support pro-
vided to individuals, and the schools preparedness to meet the
challenges of the future, will be given adequate consideration,
independently of questions of measurability.
We are firmly convinced that while the misgivings outlined here
should be taken very seriously in the process of introducing edu-
cational standards, these charges do not automatically stand in the
way of attempting to introduce these standards. In particular, they
are not a persuasive argument against systematically combining
competency models and core curriculum development as recom-
mended here. In support of this position, we would first like to
recall the fundamental and, in part, insoluble difficulties that have
been integral to all debates on educational goals in modern so-
cieties with respect to general education. We will then explain why
educational standards, despite being unable to resolve every prob-
lem, not only constitute the best available approach to dealing
with these difficulties, but do in fact possess legitimacy.

5.2 Justifying Educational Goals in Modern Societies

Educational goals neither appear out of the blue nor can they be
accorded the status of unquestioned certainties; rather, they are
the product of historical context and national traditions. To speak

52
 of Allgemeinbildung (general education) is to lay claim to a re-
cognisably German tradition of thinking about education and
interpreting culture, while those who speak of literacy are
guided by the English-speaking and international discourse, and
those whose starting point is basic skills are referring to the
debate on standards and the necessary expectations placed on
schools. As these traditions make visible, the concrete form of edu-
cational goals is always the result of societal decisions and social
power constellations. Because they are generated in lively histori-
cal discussion, determined by political decisions, codified in consti-
tutions and school legislation, discussed by theoreticians, and
adapted by teachers for everyday classroom teaching, educational
goals still vary widely even today. This is where the future of
humanity and the world are described in glowing terms, and
where the schools are identified as a place where this future can
be brought about and the norms, goals, attitudes and abilities
seen as lacking in society can be realised.
This, however, is where the problems of educational debates in
modern societies begin. These, too, can be sketched briefly, in
order to give an idea of the underlying challenges. In our view, at
least five problem areas can be distinguished for the purposes of
this discussion: (1) the undecidability of the anthropological and
social premises of educational processes, (2) the uncertainty of the
future for both individuals and society, (3) the indeterminacy of
tasks and requirements, (4) the plurality and contradictions of
expectations and (5) excessive utopianism and problems of imple-
mentation.

(1) The undecidability of the anthropological and social premises

Since the Enlightenment, it has been one of the fundamental
beliefs of modern society that the anthropological preconditions
for individual educational processes cannot be adequately ascer-
tained or predicted, and that societal limitations, such as disad-
vantages associated with social position, should not be permitted
to have a systematic impact on the pedagogical process. Anything
else would violate the rights and claims of the individual and
societys goal of achieving equality.
From an anthropological point of view, one must assume the inde-
terminacy of prerequisites, since it is the educational process itself
and not a predetermined nature or even gender that opens
up possibilities and generates the competencies that enable young
people to shape their own lives. All attempts to identify the limits

53
 of individual human possibility in advance, in a kind of diag-
nosis, and to make reliable predictions will therefore go astray.
This, of course, applies equally to the anthropological delusions of
omnipotence of some pedagogues, which plays itself out in their
desire to shape human beings in the classroom or elsewhere in
accordance with their own aspirations, and in total disregard
for individual abilities and learning practices. Giftedness is a
dimension built on the interaction between culture and nature,
disposition and learning, individual effort and pedagogical
support. Its guiding principle is individualisation rather than
equalisation.
Equality, the societal premise for this work, is an additional and
problematic issue. The process of growing up and the practice of
teaching must satisfy two quality criteria: compulsory schooling
should, if we accept the self-image of modern democratic societies,
result in all young people being able to participate independently
in society and culture and, at the same time, ensure a minimum
standard of cultural commonality, or basic skills, on which all
societies rely and which form the cornerstone of a basic general
education. However, the process must also be structured in such a
way that the competence to participate in society and culture can
be acquired and cultivated regardless of social background. At the
very least, it should be ensured that neither social status nor gen-
der, religion or region will impact on a students own efforts to
such a degree that the learning process itself reinforces the inequa-
lity of background or status.
Both of the premises underlying modern educational work the
anthropological and the social, the precept of individualisation
and that of equality are strong in theory and weak in practice.
There has never been a pedagogical approach able to conform to
the principles of equalisation and individualisation simultaneously
and to the same degree, without discontinuities or contradiction.
The collision of goals is obvious. Political decision-making is thus
necessary in order to set priorities, and a pedagogical approach
based on the idea of sequenced competency development is
necessary in order to be able to take action in practice, despite the
clash of goals in theory.

(2) The uncertainty of the future for both individuals and society
The undecidability of the anthropological and social premises is
matched on the temporal level by the uncertainty of the future for
which education is preparing its students.

54
 For this reason, educational goals are often formulated with the
aim of responding to this temporal problem in their own way by,
for instance, taking social change into account, anticipating the
future and offering a response to each of the challenges that will
arise over the course of history. They endeavour to take account of
the changes that young people will experience in rapid succession
in the family, in childhood and adolescence, as well as in their
working lives.
Educational goals and the work of the schools are understood as
responses to societal problems, but also as an appropriate reaction
to technological change, the obsolescence of knowledge and the
explosive increase in technologies. This means that educators
should be preparing students for a future that is only beginning to
emerge. While expectations like these may be both plausible and
understandable, they ask too much of teachers. Others, too, are
overtaxed by being asked to anticipate the future, but teachers are
especially hard hit by this uncertainty. They are compelled to come
up with approaches that also make sense to todays students, in the
here and now, and are capable of generating and sustaining moti-
vation without making constant reference to the distant future.

(3) The indeterminacy of tasks and requirements

One factor preventing schools from simply gearing their work
towards and preparing students for a given set of future tasks at
work or in culture, society and politics is the mutability of the
tasks themselves. General expectations common to all modern
societies may be identified for life and work in the period following
the learning phase, and the discussion of key qualifications once
made sense in this context. At the same time, however, it has been
clear since at least the 20th century that qualifications acquired at
school are not sufficient to meeting a lifetime of challenges, and
that gearing education towards key qualifications has bred either
barren, abstract concepts or a false sense of security. Changing
professions is, for instance, as common as the need to take part in
continuing education or in view of political conflicts and rapid
cultural and social change to remain capable of acting by adap-
ting to new developments. Educational goals must therefore be for-
mulated in such a way that they at least do not constitute a barrier
to the future they aim to open up.
(4) The plurality and contradictions of expectations
An additional complication is that research and debate on the way
the future may look and the way tasks may change is conducted
not only by experts, but that politicians, society, individuals and

55
 groups also have various ideas and desires with respect to the
imaginable options for the future. These are usually options that
touch on fundamental societal conflicts and cannot be simply dis-
regarded or implemented directly in learning processes, educatio-
nal goals or curricula. These controversies are mirrored in fun-
damental and concrete form on the level of educational goals.
Images of the world and humanity that have had and continue to
have an impact can be identified here, as can political ideologies,
the desire for power, private expectations of various life plans and
competing lifestyles and their norms and values. Setting out edu-
cational standards can thus also be interpreted as an attempt to
describe an area of consensus and agreement, regardless of the
conflict elsewhere.
(5) Excessive utopianism and problems of implementation
Because the schools are so significant as a way of giving shape to
the future while still in the present, they are confronted again and
again with these issues of undecidability, uncertainty, indetermina-
cy, plurality and contradiction. It is, however, a weakness of the
schools and the debates on education theory and policy that they
tend to respond to the complexity and the diffuseness of the expec-
tations and goals resulting from this situation by raising expecta-
tions unduly and demanding too much, rather than by reacting
rationally and pragmatically. Indeed, the familiar weariness with
pedagogical debates on this topic stems in part from the unmis-
takable, even glaring discrepancy between utopian plans and the
real possibilities and achievements of the schools. The schools are a
perfect example of how utopia can be transferred to ideology and
the formulation of educational goals seems to be the societal form
in which this discrepancy is put on a permanent footing.

5.3 Educational Standards and Competency Models

The Pragmatic Response to the Problem of Educational
Goals
Which solutions might be available for the problems inherent in
this system? Such solutions would need to foster the organisation
of educational processes and the translation of expected outcomes
into concrete terms, rather than simply reviving or reinforcing a
debate on goals that is out of touch with reality. We believe that
there are basically two possibilities: (1) the identification of a latent
consensus on the one hand and (2) the goal-related gearing of
pedagogical work towards competency development and compe-
tency models on the other.

56
 (1) Cultural givens and consensus on basic skills
Despite the problems inherent in the system, and beneath the
current controversies over educational goals, there is, first of all, a
zone of consensus in education that should not be overlooked. This
zone does not simply consist of the territory covered by Germanys
constitution (the Basic Law) or the constitutions of Germanys
states. Despite the plurality they reflect, the norms applicable in
the practice of education, particularly the effective ones, describe a
similar cluster of topics and targets for the process of publicly orga-
nised education in all modern societies. The consensus in practice
on the function of general education and the expectations of its
quality should not be overlooked, despite the constant emergence
of new controversies. With regard to society, it consists in the ex-
pectation that the educational system will participate in helping to
prepare students for their role as citizens, i.e., for taking part in
public life. With regard to the subject, it is the expectation that
abilities will be acquired in education that enable people to shape
their own lives as a learning process, despite the uncertainties of
work, career and social situation.
This demonstrates in general that educational goals spell out rela-
tionships between individuals and societies. They determine the
objectives and the form of socialisation and the role of subjects.
Modern, democratically organised societies committed to the tra-
dition of the Enlightenment share an ideal of an image of indi-
viduality whose paramount principles are as the Basic Law puts
it human dignity and the free development of the personality.
These premises then become general educational goals, since only
during the process of growing up can it be ensured that all of the
young people of a given generation, regardless of their social back-
ground and gender, are made capable of participating indepen-
dently in politics, society and culture and of shaping their own
lives, thereby living in accordance with this ideal and acting in-
dependently as politically mature citizens.
General educational goals of this kind show historical variation
and become controversial only once they are translated to specific
learning processes. From a structural point of view, it is at this
point that the tensions between the processes of becoming a sub-
ject and of socialisation emerge. There is, for instance, a discussion
of the virtues that must be generalised to everyday life so that the
right to individual freedom may exercised responsibly. The conflict
between more conservative positions and more culturally innova-
tive positions is, then, unavoidable, but the Basic Laws constitu-
tional order or moral law limits the extent to which disputes can

57
 be carried. The pedagogical debate has come to no agreement on
the issue of whether, for instance, the secondary virtues should
be recognised and if so, to what extent hard work, orderliness,
cleanliness and punctuality can be included among the legiti-
mate aims of education. However, the education system does not
respond to controversies of this kind by instituting uniformity; rat-
her, it makes the controversies themselves the subject of discussion.
Learning about values itself becomes a value and an aim the pos-
sibilities of which inspire heated debate for the work of the
schools. The idea is not to impart doctrines, but to enable students
to make independent, critical decisions, given the existing conflicts
over goals and values. This objective, in turn, meets with general
agreement.
This consensus also includes agreement on the basic skills that
must be present in order to make dealing with people and the
world possible at all. No one has ever denied that competence in
using cultural tools reading, writing, arithmetic, dealing with
texts, showing consideration for others or for ones own body are
among the basic skills that must be secured in the process of
growing up. This takes place in the family and with peers, but
schools are needed if systematic learning is a prerequisite for the
mastery and use of basic skills of this kind, as with reading and
writing and, nowadays, dealing competently with the hardware
and software of a media-determined culture. Universalising the
ability to use these skills meets with acceptance; dissent arises only
once their use is to be standardised with respect to content, i.e.,
that students should, for instance, read only what they are permit-
ted to read. However, teachers are unable to guarantee that
mastery of basic skills will be used in only one way, let alone in a
moralist or normatively unambiguous way.
The problem of assessing the education systems performance
remains an issue here and must be solved, since it appears that
not even basic competencies can be taken for granted. The ability
to use basic skills can be easily assessed, which means that agree-
ment on the performance of the schools would be possible on
this point - within the zone of consensus on expectations. Further-
more, ambitious and demanding educational goals such as
political
maturity, the ability to participate independently in a democratic
society - are not principally excluded from an empirical discussion
of assessment methods. However, there is as yet no consensus on
appropriate operationalisations, and the long-held hope of curri-

58
 cular theorists that concrete learning objectives able to be accu-
rately measured against behaviour could be conclusively derived
from general educational goals has been abandoned.
The political debate is able to achieve consensus only on the sig-
nificance of the dimensions of the work done by the schools, since
no one would seriously dispute that political maturity in a demo-
cracy is as essential to action as having basic skills at ones
command. The rest remains controversial, and the interesting
question is how one might, nevertheless, be able to move forward
in the discussion of the quality of educational processes. This has
traditionally been the starting point of the public debate on edu-
cation, which has now evolved into a discussion of how to gear this
process towards competency models.

(2) Competency development and competency models as a solution

in a normatively conflicted situation
A look at the function and the possibilities of education in modern
societies reveals that the abilities imparted by the schools and con-
sidered by society to be universal prerequisites for communication
are apparently abilities that take on their special quality that is,
their significance beyond the zone of consensus and despite the
difficulty of justifying educational goals only in the light of per-
manently controversial external expectations. The concept of Bil-
dung (education), the traditional German general formula for what
is expected from (lifelong, not just school-based) learning proces-
ses, constitutes a precise description of the ability of subjects to act
under the conditions of undecidability, indeterminacy, uncertainty
and plurality. Educational processes were supposed to give rise to
the maturity for taking action under these circumstances and,
moreover, in a way that makes the subjects self-construction
possible given socially unavoidable expectations; that is, to enable
uniformity and individualisation simultaneously.
Competencies, however, describe the same thing that is, abili-
ties of the kind intended and assumed by the term Bildung: abili-
ties which are acquired, not inherent, which are experienced in
and through particular aspects of societal reality, and which are
suited to shaping this reality. In addition, these are abilities that
are capable of being cultivated over a lifetime, enhanced and re-
fined in such a way that internal gradations can be measured, such
as from basic to more advanced general education. They are, how-
ever, also abilities that enable a process of self-directed learning,
since the aim is abilities that are acquired not only in conjunction
with tasks and processes, but can be detached from the original

59
 situation, meet the challenges of the future and are open to prob-
lems of all kinds.
This makes it clear that competency models, theoretical descrip-
tions of the structure of these specific abilities and the levels of
their acquisition, are also conceived as a response to typical con-
temporary problems. An examination of their (implicit rather than
explicit) normative content reveals that they react to the complexi-
ties of the debate over educational goals not by fixing on the pre-
sent, but with an open approach to the process. Further, they react
reflectively to the necessity of making revisions throughout the
process. Just as the concept of Bildung intended in its distinction
between different layers of education in describing an educated
person, competency models include among their gradations the
criterion that a subjects command of a given ability is not com-
plete until it includes the ability to relearn and add learning or, in
other words, the ability to examine the world and ones learning
critically.
The theory of competence and competency development adopts
this internal distinction only to the extent that it distinguishes
levels of competency and a sequence of acquisition in its own
models of gradation. In this process, and as with the older theory
of Bildung, the degree of reflexivity in dealing with problems that
is, the critical examination of ones own learning and of the world,
tasks and solution-finding processes is the best indicator for de-
vising such gradations and for developing them for concrete
spheres of action. The domains of knowledge and action in
which competencies develop can thus be compared quite ade-
quately, and with no structural discontinuity, with the dimensions
of modern general education, dimensions that even today reveal
their traditional origins.
The basic skills we can expect of general education today can
also be specifically identified: they relate to the ability to partici-
pate independently in society, to recognise the individual signi-
ficance of the various dimensions of action moral, cognitive,
social and individual and to use these, and to gear ones own
actions towards a general law. At the same time, with regard to the
rest of their lives, it is assumed that all young people will develop
the capacity to deal with new challenges, an uncertain future, and
various options for shaping their own lives while continuing to
learn. Learning to learn is essential for the entire course of ones
life and is the fundamental competence that must be universalised
in the work of the schools in modern, open societies.

60
 The abstract concept of learning to learn calls for more specifi-
city in terms of content, however: the mastery of basic cultural
tools reading, writing and arithmetic, as defined by the various
aspects of the literacy concept of general education and as
assessed in the PISA studies describes the basal level. The dimen-
sion of simple cultural tools is no longer adequate, however, as a
general premise for participation in societal communication.
Rather, young people must become capable of using computers,
dealing with the media and meeting the challenges of a multi-
cultural world, and, at the same time, they must be able to make
the transition from the simple, self-oriented way of approaching
the world to the fundamental scientific modes of experiencing the
world.
Traditional education theory offered four such modes of
experiencing the world and made these the core of its idea of
general education and the knowledge necessary to it: historic,
mathematic, linguistic and aesthetic-expressive. The basic
dimensions of education in history and the social sciences, mathe-
matics and the natural sciences, ones own language and foreign
languages, and the arts, which determine the basic structure of
the curriculum and the choice and selection of subjects in schools
even today, are clearly recognisable in these four modes of ex-
periencing the world. These dimensions were overlaid by the
belief that instruction as a whole should be philosophical and
thereby self-critical. This means that the traditional aspects of
general education describe precisely those aspects of knowledge
and skills and thus of competencies that a core curriculum of
modern general education (Tenorth 1994, Baumert 2002b, es-
pecially p. 113) lists even today to designate the fields of reference
and canonical basic knowledge for which cultural tools, in the
form of basal linguistic and regulatory competencies, must be
acquired.
Thus, there exist good reasons why educational standards based
on competency theory are not formulated as general educational
goals but rather as domain-specific performance expectations.
While they can be traced back to general expectations and
measured against these within their own political and theoretical
discourse, they can be neither derived from nor equated with
these.

61
 Fig. 5: Basic structure of general education and the canon;
based on Baumert (2002).
Modes of Encountering the Basal Linguistic and Self-Regulatory Competencies (Cultural Tools)
World General, Canonical
Knowledge) Mastery of Mathematisational Foreign IT Competence Self-
the Lingua Competence Language Regulationl of
Franca Competence Knowledge
Acquisition
Cognitive and Instrumen-
tal Modelling of the World
Mathematics
Natural Sciences
Aesthetic and Expressive
Encounters and Creation
Language/Literature
MusiMusic/Painting/
Visual Arts
Physical Expression
Dealing with Economics and
Society Normatively and
Evaluatively
History
Economics
Politics/Society
Law
Problems of Constitutive
Rationality
Religion
Philosophy

5.4 Problems of Legitimisation: Public Discourse

and the Constructions of Experts
General educational goals will retain a function of their own, but
this function is less a matter of construction and operation than of
critique and observation. In his reflections on Bildung, Hartmut von
Hentig suggested recently that general goals of this kind not be
interpreted as quantifiable targets for educational processes, but as
criteria for examining their validity (Hentig 1996, especially pp.
71ff.). They should act as measures that help to make a funda-
mental discussion of the desirability and the legitimacy of edu-
cational processes and their outcomes possible in the medium of
general political and social communication.
Hentig describes these potential yardsticks for the education of
subjects and the formation of their abilities as abhorrence of and
defence against inhumanity; the ability to perceive happiness; the
ability and the will to communicate; an awareness of the historicity
of ones own existence; a willingness to question apparent certain-
ties and a dual criterion the willingness to take responsibility
for oneself and within the res publica. Hentig knows that these

62
 educational criteria are not measurable, and he also does not
assume that they can be made the sole responsibility of the
schools, since school represents only one of the learning oppor-
tunities available in life. Nevertheless, he wants to utilise these
criteria, in the context of the following principle: Whatever edu-
cates changes, shapes, strengthens, enlightens, moves human
beings, I will measure according to whether it produces this.
With this, he means his yardsticks.
These aspirations belong to the sphere of general educational
goals, however, rather than to the discussion of measurable and
basal educational standards. The locus of discussion of such edu-
cational criteria is as Hentig puts it the polis itself, the enligh-
tened public and its morally responsible argumentation. The po-
litical discourse, with its own conditions and conflicts, thereby
forms the framework into which educational standards are inte-
grated, but it can neither determine their structure nor substitute
the assessment of educational outcomes. This, however, is the
medium of discursive legitimisation on which educational stan-
dards depend if they are to derive legitimacy from anything other
than the process of their political construction.
Educational standards must be judged on the basis of whether they
open up access to general educational goals of this kind and to a
discussion of these criteria. When defined in terms of competency
theory, they are indeed able to do so, if only because their own
adherence to the logic of education theory is recognisable and can
be classified systematically in a modern core curriculum for gene-
ral education.
This makes them productive and relevant in two directions. For the
discourse of education theory and education and social policy, they
are an adequate response to the problem of education being possi-
ble and imaginable only as the achievement of the subject but, at
the same time, incorporating the expectations that unite societies
with their own future and the possibilities of the individual. At the
same time, in answer to the question of the specific role of the
school in this process, educational standards can offer a criteria-
based operationalisation and assessment of what is expected of
students and the quality of teaching, and thereby identify the areas
of knowledge and skills in which quality of this kind becomes
teachable and improvable. In contrast to the purely philosophical
and political debate, however, models like these can also set the
stage for the realistic view of the performance of the schools that is
absolutely essential today.

63
 6. Competency Models from the Perspective
of Educational Psychology
One key task of educational standards, as they are defined in this
report, is to identify the competencies that students have to ac-
quire if the educational goals described in Chapter 5 are to be con-
sidered achieved. Competency models serve, on the one hand, to
describe the learning outcomes expected of students of given ages
in specific subjects. On the other hand, they map out possible
routes to knowledge and skills based on sound scientific insights.
Competency models thus provide a framework for operationali-
sations of educational goals, which in turn allow the output of the
education system to be monitored empirically in assessment pro-
grammes (see Chapter 7).
Competency models serve to bridge the gap between abstract edu-
cational goals and concrete pools of tasks. Models describing the
acquisition of competencies not only facilitate the design of assess-
ment programmes, but also provide points of reference for tea-
ching guided by students actual learning processes and learning
outcomes in a given domain, rather than by the analytic frame-
work of the subject matter alone.
The theoretical analysis and modelling of competencies is a very
active field in psychological and educational research, as is the
empirical investigation of these competencies. In recent years, re-
searchers have gained detailed insights into the structure and
development of competencies in given domains and how they can
be fostered at school. These findings can be used in the develop-
ment of educational standards. However, competency models with
a sound empirical basis have only been elaborated for isolated con-
tent areas, age groups and student populations. Mathematics is
among the subjects that have been dealt with in most detail. In
many cases, work on educational standards will thus rely primarily
on the know-how of experts in subject didactics, whose concep-
tions of the structure and development of student competencies
combine subject analytical, psychological and practical instruc-
tional aspects. The two frameworks presented in the Appendix
the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
and the Canadian Common Framework of Science Outcomes are
examples of such pragmatic approaches.

64
 6.1 The Concept of Competence
In a review paper, the educational scientist and psychologist Franz
Weinert (1999) established that the term competence is used in
various ways and ascribed a variety of meanings, ranging from
innate personality factors (e.g., talent, intelligence) to large bodies
of acquired knowledge, and from general key competencies to
subject-specific skills. If the concept of competence is to form the
basis for changes in education policy as is the case in the develop-
ment of educational standards consensus will have to be reached
on the terminology used. Weinert presents a convincing argument
that the most viable definition of competence is that developed in
the field of expertise research. Expertise research looks at experts
proficient in a particular subject or field of study, termed a do-
main. This concept of competence can be transferred effortlessly
to the school setting. Descriptions of competence, and especially
attempts to operationalise it, tend to focus on cognitive attributes
(subject-specific memory, extensive knowledge base, automatised
skills). However, the concept of competence expressly also covers
motivational and action-related attributes.
In line with Weinert (2001, p. 27f.), we define competencies as the
cognitive abilities and skills possessed by or able to be learned by
individuals that enable them to solve particular problems, as well
as the motivational, volitional and social readiness and capacity
to use the solutions successfully and responsibly in variable situa-
tions.
According to this definition, competence is a disposition that
enables people to solve particular types of problems, that is, to deal
with certain kinds of concrete situations. Weinert suggests that the
individual degree of competency is determined by various facets:
ability
knowledge
understanding
skill
action
experience
motivation
The combined effects of these facets can be illustrated by the
example of competence in foreign languages, where the capacity
for communicative action is prescribed as the educational goal.
According to this conception, competence in foreign languages
is expressed by the ability:

65
 to deal with communicative situations (action and experience),
to understand different types of texts (understanding) and
to compose ones own texts in the appropriate register (skill),
but also to produce sentences that are grammatically correct and
to correct these if necessary (ability and knowledge),
and the intention and motivation to interact with other cultures
openly and with acceptance (motivation).

Standards for foreign language learning that are committed to the

educational goal of communicative action must cover all of these
aspects (cf. Appendix a). Cognitive knowledge is not the only issue
here; rather as intercultural openness, the last point on the list,
makes particularly clear attitudes, values and motivations also
play an important role.
This has some notable implications for the development of compe-
tency models and the subsequent design of illustrative sample
items and of assessment programmes:
Competence can only be assessed and measured in terms of per-
formance. Competence forms the link between knowledge and
skills (see below) and can be seen as the ability to deal with situ-
ations or tasks. Any illustration or operationalisation of a compe-
tence must therefore relate directly to a concrete situation.
Competencies cannot be reflected by or assessed in terms of a
single, isolated performance. Rather, the range of situations in
which a specific competence takes effect always spans a certain
spectrum of performance. Thus, competencies must be developed
and furthered in a broad range of learning contexts, covering a
variety of task types and transfer situations. The description of
competencies in educational standards and their implementa-
tion in tasks and tests must also be sufficiently broad. Narrow
assessments cannot meet the requirements of competency
models. The seven facets of competence listed above make it
quite clear that competence must be assessed by an array of tasks
and tests that do more than simply tap factual knowledge.

6.2 Competency Models

In its function as an intermediary between educational goals on
the one hand and specific tasks and requirements on the other,
competence comprises a variety of components that have to act in
combination. Competency models serve two purposes with
respect to educational standards. First, they describe the web of

66
 requirements that students are expected to master (component
model); second, they provide scientifically sound insights into
successive levels of competence and make it possible to determine
the degree or level of competence that individual students have
attained (proficiency model).
Competency models should incorporate all seven of the facets
listed in Section 6.1. Accordingly, students can be said to possess
competence in a particular domain when:
they use given abilities,
they are able to access available knowledge or acquire new
knowledge,
they understand the key relationships within a domain,
they choose the appropriate actions,
they apply the skills they have acquired to perform these actions,
they use this as an opportunity to gather experience, and
the cognitions accompanying their actions motivate them to act
appropriately.
Owing to the key role of subject-specific knowledge and skills, com-
petencies are largely domain specific.
The fact that the concept of competence presented here focuses on
specific content areas, subjects or domains may surprise readers
who are familiar with the educational debate on furthering com-
petencies, where the term competence is often used to describe
more general, cross-curricular skills. However, research in the field
of educational psychology suggests that it is not enough to declare
cross-curricular key skills a panacea, or to identify them as inde-
pendent goals of school education. Although components such as
methodological, personal and social competencies are important,
they are no substitute for competencies tied to specific subjects. In
fact, research indicates that general skills can only evolve if well-
developed subject-specific skills are already in place. Thus, placing
subject-related competencies in opposition to cross-curricular
ones does not clarify the coverage of competency models. Rather,
subject-specific competencies are a necessary condition for cross-
curricular competencies.
One consequence of this is that the concept of competence must
first be articulated and operationalised within domains or subjects.
This makes it necessary to build on the theory and insights of sub-
ject didactics when developing competency models. Subject didac-
tics reconstruct learning processes in terms of both the system
underlying the subject, and the specific, domain-dependent logic

67
 of knowledge acquisition and competency development; both of
these aspects must be taken into account when describing the
components and levels of competence.
Apart from their component structure and their subject or domain
specificity, another key element of competency models is that they
incorporate competency levels. These levels allow test results to be
judged against a given standard (criterion-referenced assessment)
and minimum standards to be set (see Chapter 7). Each compe-
tency level is defined by cognitive processes and actions of a partic-
ular calibre that students at this level can handle and students at
lower levels cannot.
The system used to describe competency levels can take on very
different forms, depending on the domain. In general, the succes-
sive levels represent combinations of the facets listed above (know-
ledge, skill, understanding, action, motivation, etc.; cf. Section 6.3
below). Proficiency models of this kind have been developed within
TIMSS and PISA, and an example is presented below (Klieme 2000;
Klieme, Neubrand & Ldtke 2001). The basic idea of this model is
that a persons mathematical competence can be described with
reference to tasks that can be assigned a specific level of difficulty.
Individuals at the lowest competency level are able to retrieve and
apply their arithmetical knowledge directly. Those at the highest
competency level, in contrast, are capable of complex modelling
and mathematical argumentation. The model below, which is des-
cribed in more detail in Neubrand et al. 2002 and Knoche et al.
2002, highlights what a curriculum based on the acquisition of
skills will have to accomplish. It is not a matter of simply breaking
down educational content into small incremental steps (good
command of arithmetic with numbers up to 20); what is impor-
tant is that this content be related to an area of application.
The PISA competency level model (Klieme, Neubrand & Ldtke
2001, p. 160) defines the following five levels:
Level I: Computation at primary school level
Students assigned to this competency level have only primary
school knowledge of arithmetic and geometry. They are able to
retrieve this knowledge and to apply it directly if the question
points to a certain standard form of mathematisation from the
outset. They are not capable of conceptual modelling.
Level II: Modelling at primary school level
Students at this competency level are capable of the simplest
forms of conceptual modelling, embedded in an extra-mathe-
matical context. They are able to select the correct solution from

68
 several possibilities, provided that charts, tables, diagrams, etc.
provide a structure that facilitates the modelling process. Here
again, however, they only have a firm command of the material
covered in primary school mathematics.
Level III: Modelling and forming conceptual relationships at lower
secondary level
This level represents a qualitative leap over Level II in several
respects. Students at this competency level also have access to
simple lower secondary level material, i.e., to the standard topics
covered in the mathematics curricula of all school types. They
are able to link up concepts from various mathematical domains
and to apply these to solve problems, provided that visual repre-
sentations support them in this process.
Level IV: Extensive modelling on the basis of demanding concepts
Students at this competency level are able to perform more
extensive processing operations in the technical domain, and are
thus able to solve a problem by taking several intermediate steps.
These students are also able to deal with open-ended modelling
tasks that can be solved in various ways, but that require them to
find a solution of their own. The ability to model inner-mathema-
tical conceptual relations is also more advanced.
Level V: Complex modelling and inner-mathematical
argumentation
Students assigned to this final competency level have access to
demanding curricular knowledge. They are also able to cope
with open-ended tasks that require them to choose or construct
models at their own discretion. Conceptual modelling at this
highest level often includes mathematical justification and proof
as well as reflection on the modelling process itself.

It may be the case that the levels of a competency model can also
be interpreted as consecutive steps in the acquisition process. In this
case, a competency model would reflect how the blend of the
various components of competence matures during a young per-
sons learning biography, i.e., how competencies are acquired.
However, it is much more difficult to address these issues from a
scientific perspective than to describe the levels attained by stu-
dents of a certain age or grade cohort. The TIMSS and PISA com-
petency level models, for example, are definitely not intended to
be developmental models in this sense. Rather, they are descrip-
tions of the levels of mathematical competence attained within the
student population under investigation.

69
 It will be rarely be possible to fully elaborate a scientifically sound
competency model in terms of components, proficiency levels or
even developmental trajectories. Nevertheless, the traditional
curriculum development process and the lesson planning done by
teachers are necessarily based on implicit conceptions of compe-
tency structures and their acquisition. By explicating the underly-
ing assumptions about the structure of competencies and to the
extent possible linking up with subject didactic and psychological
research, educational standards should facilitate a qualitative step
forward here.

6.3 The Relationship between Knowledge and Skills

As outlined above, educational standards incorporate competency
models, in which the simultaneous application of knowledge and
skills to deal with specific situations plays a key role. However,
there is much uncertainty in the sphere of education about the
nature of relationship between knowledge and skills. Knowledge is
often equated with the facts set down in curricula. Yet even if
students succeed in acquiring this knowledge, it often remains
inert. In other words, it cannot be applied in situations other
than the one in which it was acquired. Hence, this purely factual
knowledge does not constitute a sufficient basis for competent
action, and the schools mission of promoting lifelong learning
and active participation in society is thereby undermined. If the
concept of educational standards is to have the desired effect, it
may help to refer to theories on the relationship between knowled-
ge and skills that have been elaborated and empirically tested in
empirical pedagogical research and the cognitive sciences over the
past decade. These theories are based on a more general concept
of knowledge, which is not confined to knowledge of facts.
Some theories are based on the assumption that knowledge first
has to be acquired as declarative knowledge (explicit factual know-
ledge that can be put into words) and is then increasingly proce-
duralised, i.e., translated to associations and operations that are
accessed automatically. Procedural knowledge does not have to be
reconstructed consciously every time it is applied, but is automati-
cally accessible in the form of ingrained patterns of movement and
trains of thought. This pinpoints a principle that can be used to
define competency levels: higher competency levels in a domain
would be characterised by the increasing proceduralisation of
knowledge. In classical terms, this means that, at higher levels,
knowledge is converted to skills.

70
 The development of competence also involves the increasing inte-
gration of various elements of knowledge, the generation of meta-
knowledge (knowledge about ones own knowledge, its structure,
methods of application, etc.) and of more abstract knowledge.
These principles can be used to distinguish different levels or deve-
lopmental stages of competencies. For instance, it can be expected
that students who have reached higher competency levels in a
domain are able to reflect on their own approach to a problem
and to argue the case for the strategy chosen. As emphasised in
Section 5.3, these kinds of models unite theories based in educa-
tional theory and those (with a more psychological slant) based in
competence theory. Of course, whether or not this kind of associa-
tion of knowledge and skills, knowledge and meta-knowledge, etc.
gives an accurate reflection of the structure of competencies in a
given domain is a question that will have to be addressed by empi-
rical means or at least using sound subject didactical models.
The nature of the relationship between knowledge and skills out-
lined here also has concrete implications for curriculum design
and lesson planning. Higher competency levels, which are associa-
ted with skills and the ability to perform, can only be achieved if
knowledge is constantly subjected to the acid test of performance,
and passes this test. The task of linking knowledge and skills must
not be deferred to out-of-school situations. Rather, the variety of
situations in which knowledge could potentially be applied should
be reflected during the acquisition process. The construction of
domain-specific schemata is significant here. These are know-
ledge structures acquired in application situations, which learners
(and not their teachers!) generalise and systematise on the basis of
their learning experiences in such a way that they can also be
applied to different situations in the future. Empirical educational
research has shown that the acquisition of such schemata can be
supported, for example, by case-based teaching and learning
environments. These fulfil several criteria of successful skill acqui-
sition:
The students (learning) experiences within the subject area are
relevant to them personally.
The teaching and learning material gives an accurate reflection
of the various components of competence.
It is not a single component of competence such as factual
knowledge that is tested, but the treatment of cases.
The cultural context in which learning processes occur is taken
into account.

71
 The situation in which the learning process occurs is relevant to
its outcome.

Thus, it is clear that on condition that they are anchored in

psychological and subject didactic theories conceptions of the
structure, levels and development of competencies not only further
the systematic development of tasks and assessment procedures,
they also provide valuable information on ways to enhance the
school learning environment.

72
 7. Test Development: Methodological
and Diagnostic Principles
Educational standards are first formulated in verbal terms. They
identify the competencies that students are expected to acquire in
a particular learning area, and are based on competency models
that enumerate the different aspects (dimensions) and levels of
these competencies. Furthermore, educational standards are nor-
mative in that they define a certain level of competence as the
minimum standard to be attained by all students.2
As described in Chapter 2, the next step is for these verbal (qualita-
tive) educational standards to be translated into actual tasks and
testing programmes. For teachers, translating educational objec-
tives in a given subject into teaching content is part of the every-
day routine of lesson planning and student assessment. Standards
can provide them with useful guidelines here. However, the tasks
of compiling test instruments, conducting field trials and finally
implementing tests in the context of system-wide quality assurance
and development measures call for in-depth, specialist knowledge,
and can only be achieved as a collaborative effort involving experts
in the fields of subject didactics, empirical educational research,
and pedagogical and psychological methods.
One positive development that has been observed at schools in the
context of internal evaluation (see Chapter 9) is that class tests are
increasingly being coordinated on the departmental level and set
as parallel assessments. This gives teachers the opportunity to har-
monize their instructional objectives with their colleagues, and
provides insights into the performance levels of different classes in
the same grade. Although the results of these parallel tests can
stimulate valuable discussion within a school, they are not the kind
of assessments considered in this report and should not be ad-
ministered on a cross-school basis. (See Helmke & Hosenfeld 2003
for details on the difference between parallel tests such as these
and professionally developed testing programmes for use through-
out the school system.)

2
Educational standards may also identify higher levels of competency, with
norm standards stipulating the level to be attained by at least half the
students, for example. This aspect is not considered separately in the follo-
wing, however, because it has no impact on the actual process of test
development.

73
 It is vital that tests developed and implemented within educational
monitoring programmes and external evaluations meet professio-
nal quality standards, as results are otherwise likely to be misinter-
preted or over-interpreted. The panel authoring this report thus
notes with some concern that some of the cross-school compari-
sons being performed in the field do not fulfil the necessary cri-
teria. This risks generating more misinformation and confusion
than clarity and guidance.
However, even in the case of professional, standards-based test
development using the proper pedagogical and psychological
methods (Rost 1996), as described in this chapter, it is important to
differentiate between several possible applications of test items.
The intended use for the items may have implications for task
development, for the design of assessment instruments, and for test
administration and interpretation. It is also one of the factors de-
termining the organisation of the test development process. One of
the basic principles of modern diagnostic testing is that the quality
of assessment methods (i.e., their validity, but also their accuracy of
measurement and other attributes) cannot be evaluated per se, but
has to be seen in the context of the proposed use of the assessment
and the information sought.
Four potential fields of application for standards-based tests can be
distinguished as follows:
1. Testing competency models: As advocated in this report, educatio-
nal standards should be based on differentiated competency
models. It is important that these models be tested in empirical
studies before they are used for assessment purposes. Only when
test-based studies have confirmed that the models are an accu-
rate reflection of the different aspects and levels of learners
competencies and, in some cases, of their development can
the respective assessment instruments be implemented in any of
the three domains outlined below. These studies can thus essen-
tially be regarded as part of the test development process.
2. System monitoring: In the TIMSS and PISA studies, for example,
tests are used to examine student competency levels and to iden-
tify relationships between students performance and aspects of
their lives inside and outside school. Supplementary surveys,
including video studies and other empirical research techniques,
can be used to tap background factors. As a rule, these studies
produce indicators at the system level (often the country level)
showing, for example, how well educational standards are being
attained but not at the individual school level. Data gathered

74
 in the context of system monitoring studies can also be used to
derive norm-referenced standards for use in subsequent studies,
i.e., norms that allow students scores to be compared with those
of a reference population.
3. School evaluation: Here, tests and other methods for instance,
interactive methods prompting individuals to reflect on their
own practice (self-evaluation) are used to gauge the extent to
which a school is achieving its educational objectives. Ideally,
this kind of evaluation is based on a detailed analysis of the
schools educational programme and its particular difficulties,
and can thus provide targeted feedback on precisely these
aspects. It is important that internal and external evaluations
complement one another.
4. Individual diagnosis and support: In everyday classroom practice,
tests are used to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of indi-
vidual students and thus to identify their special needs. In this
context, it is generally better to assess a narrow competency
domain in detail than to cover the whole spectrum of a system
monitoring programme with relatively few tasks per student and
content area.
It is important that these different applications of tests and test
items be clearly distinguished in the public discussion. Of course,
this is not to deny the existence of certain hybrid forms of the vari-
ants listed above. A combination of system monitoring and school
evaluation is quite conceivable when schools participate in natio-
nal evaluation programmes producing indicators of certain cen-
trally selected quality aspects, for example. One such quality aspect
in future studies will doubtless be the degree to which national
educational standards have been achieved. Furthermore, system
monitoring often involves the testing of competency models (as in
the PISA study, for example).
Standards-based tests could, in principle, also be put to another
use, namely the grading and certification of student achievement.
Indeed, (centralised) exit examinations can also be regarded as
assessment methods in the broader sense, and it might seem
reasonable to use standards particularly those specifying the
competencies to be acquired by the end of a course of education
as the basis for these examinations. However, the authoring panel
strongly advises against using standards-based tests for purposes of
grading and certification. In our view, the development and imple-
mentation of educational standards can serve to improve the quali-
ty of individual schools and of the education system as a whole,

75
 it may also help to further individual students, but it does NOT
serve the purpose of centralised examination (see Chapter 4).
Educational standards, the tests developed to measure them and
the results yielded are put to very different uses in each of the
variants described above. These differing objectives may ultimately
have implications for the test development process itself.
In this chapter, we consider how tests are developed (7.1) and the
infrastructure necessary for this process (7.2). In both sections,
account is taken of the various objectives of test application. The
questions of how the tests can be implemented and what kind of
infrastructure will be needed will not be addressed until Chapter 9,
which deals with the implications of and conditions necessary for
the introduction of standards.
Before going on, it is important to emphasise that the principles of
test development outlined below do not apply to performance
assessment in the everyday classroom routine, but to the develop-
ment of centralised test instruments for use on a cross-school basis.
Specialised, technical aspects of test development will also be
addressed.

7.1 Principles of Test Development

Before an assessment instrument can be developed for a specific
purpose, four basic principles of test development have to be
addressed:
Are results to be interpreted relative to those of other schools/
students (norm-referenced assessment) or is performance to be
judged against an agreed criterion (criterion-referenced assess-
ment)?
Is competency in a given subject or content area to be reported
on a single combined scale (unidimensional scaling), or are diffe-
rent components of competency to be differentiated and repor-
ted separately (multidimensional scaling)?
Are all students to work on the same items, or are different ver-
sions of the test to be rotated within a class, meaning that stu-
dents are presented with different sets of items and that a grea-
ter total number of items can thus be administered?
Is one and the same test to be set for all competency levels and
school types, or are items to be individually tailored to a particu-
lar group or test taker (branched or adaptive testing)?
The answer to the first question is inherent in the very concept of
educational standards: Educational standards constitute criteria in

76
 the sense of criterion-referenced assessment. When determining
whether educational standards are being achieved, it is not a
question of examining how individual students or groups of stu-
dents perform relative to other students or reference populations,
as is the case with performance ranking. Results are not inter-
preted in relation to the distribution of scores across the total
population or in individual reference populations; rather, the
criteria laid down in the educational standards constitute the sole
frame of reference. How many other students meet the criteria has
no bearing on an individuals chances of success.
When monitoring educational standards expressed in the form of
competency models, performance is measured against the criteria
of the competency levels central to these models. Competencies are
abstract concepts of desired educational outcomes, and are not
defined in terms of directly observable behaviour. Competency
levels, however, are defined in terms of the cognitive processes to
be mastered and the knowledge to be acquired in order to reach
certain stages of a competency dimension (see Chapter 6). They are
the key to constructing and interpreting criterion-referenced tests,
as they offer an alternative to setting arbitrary benchmarks on a
continuum.
When the educational targets to be attained in various school
grades are laid down in the form of competency levels, the goal of
the test development process is to construct test items that are
valid indicators of whether each competency level has been
reached. Thus, test items must be devised to tap precisely those
aspects that are characteristic of the competency level in question.
This kind of systematic test development based on the competency
level model is only possible with the necessary didactic and psycho-
logical expertise. (Numerous examples are provided in the report
of the National Research Council, 2001.) The task developers must
stipulate the competency level that a task taps, and the aspects of
procedural and declarative knowledge that it requires. These task
requirement profiles must then be empirically tested to ensure that
the items really do measure the aspects enumerated in the compe-
tency model. Tests can only be used to measure student competen-
ce after this trial phase. Individual test results are then reported in
terms of the competency level that a student has reached in the
respective competency model.
Although empirical studies serving the purpose of system moni-
toring (see point 2 above) should be geared towards the criterion-
referenced interpretation of test outcomes, there is nothing to stop
distribution norms being computed to obtain additional, norm-

77
 referenced standards for the test. TIMSS, and especially PISA, are
examples of such a combination of rigorous criterion-referenced
test development and norm-referenced interpretation.
Multidimensional measurements tapping profiles of desired compe-
tencies are a better reflection of educational standards than uni-
dimensional measures of performance differences. Covering a
broad spectrum of competency dimensions makes it possible to
draw inferences on the aptness of educational targets and, at the
same time, to identify shortcomings that prevent standards from
being met. Detailed educational standards and multidimensional
tests are thus incompatible with simple ranking tables, which
would be of little value to school quality development.
When testing programmes are used for the purpose of individual
diagnosis (see point 4), with the aim of prescribing appropriate
support measures for individual students, for example, it is a
matter of course that all students tested complete all of the items
relevant to the assessment of his or her strengths and weaknesses.
This is not generally the case in system monitoring studies, how-
ever. Rather, to enhance the descriptive power of the results at the
aggregate level, i.e., for a class, a school or a country, the range of
performance captured by the tests can be radically widened by pre-
senting each student with just a selection of items. The wealth of
data collected from the total study population ensures high validity
of the results at the aggregate level of classes, schools or countries.
Comparability and reliability of the results on the individual level
is limited, however.
When data is analysed using modern, probabilistic test models
(Rost 1996), it is not only possible for various groups of students to
work on different sets of items, but for the difficulty of these item
sets to be tailored to the expected performance levels of specific
subpopulations. Provided that the various item sets are linked by
anchor items, it is still possible to describe the performance para-
meters of all students on the same scale. These tailored tests have
two decided advantages. First, their results are more accurate;
second, the test takers motivation does not flag, as is often the
case when tests are either too easy or too difficult for the students
taking them.
The four different fields of application for tests mentioned in the
introduction and the implications outlined in this section show
that it is not a question of developing a single, all-purpose assess-
ment instrument for use in all instances. The intended purpose of
an assessment impacts on its optimality criteria. It may thus make

78
 sense to implement large pools of items in system monitoring
studies, but to select particular competency domains for school eva-
luation studies and, in particular, individual diagnosis, and to gain
a more accurate and in-depth insight into these domains by ad-
ministering additional items. Despite their differences, all four
variants are based on the same underlying concept that the
assessment of performance is not based on an arbitrary selection of
tasks, but on the competencies and competency models defined by
the educational standards.

7.2 Responsibility for and Institutionalisation

of Test Development
Responsibility for ensuring that assessment instruments developed
for use throughout the school system are methodologically sound
must lie with an agency with the necessary technical expertise.
This agency cannot and should not take sole responsibility for deve-
loping the instruments, however, but should work in close coopera-
tion with the state institutes for teacher education and curriculum
development, associations of subject specialists, teachers associa-
tions and university centres. It is vital that the agency does not
become an overly powerful institution with a tendency to create
autonomous structures; a relatively streamlined organisational
structure will be needed to effect the necessary cooperation and
collaboration.
The agency would be responsible for coordinating the test develop-
ment process, negotiating agreements between the states, moni-
toring the quality of the instruments, and reporting back to the
other bodies involved in the development of educational standards
(see above). The possibility of involving commercial test develop-
ment services in the process should also be considered.
Of the different variants conceivable, Variant C is thus considered
most problematic:
Variant A Outsourcing. The test agency specifies the instruments
to be developed at a given time, issues a call for tender, and
commissions a suitable applicant.
Variant B Evaluation/certification of existing instruments. The test
agency does its own research, works with available products and
evaluates items proposed by institutions and states. It could focus
on the certification of existing test instruments including those
developed by commercial suppliers i.e., on assessing whether

79
 these instruments are consistent with educational standards and
meet the quality standards of scientifically sound test develop-
ment.
Variant C Test development institute. The agency employs a team
of professional test developers, who work in close cooperation
with teachers and experts.

Because the impending developmental tasks are so complex, and

because there is no established tradition of developing these kinds
of test instruments in Germany, it seems unrealistic to expect that a
simple solution will be found. The social and professional groups
mentioned above must be involved in the process not only to
ensure a broad base of knowledge and skills, but also to emphasise
that educational monitoring is the responsibility of society as a
whole.
It goes without saying that an agency of this type will require con-
siderable funding. None of the institutes currently working in this
sector can take on these new tasks at no additional cost. Indeed, if
the agency is to assume a key role in the output-driven manage-
ment of the German education system, it will constitute a new kind
of organisational unit that will neither be available free of charge
nor go into operation overnight. The establishment of such an
agency and the ensuing transitional period can be expected to last
several years (see also Chapter 11).

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 8. Implications for Curriculum Development
and School Curricula: Standards
and Core Curricula
Educational standards, as conceived of in the previous chapters,
can give teachers a frame of reference for their work and guide
the pedagogical development of schools. This alone can have
implications for lesson planning and design and for school quality
development. Indeed, schools will require additional guidance,
support and advice if they are to work constructively with the new
standards. It follows that initial teacher training and in-service
training, curriculum development, the school supervisory authori-
ties and other educational authorities will have to respond to the
impact of educational standards by assuming new functions.
In addition to this guideline function, educational standards can
also serve to secure the quality of the education system: learning
outcomes are measured empirically at the system level (educatio-
nal monitoring) and at the individual school level (school evalua-
tion) and reported back to those concerned, so that they can
learn from the experience of this output-driven management.
This function of monitoring and evaluation will also be probably
even more closely associated with changes in the education
system, as the quality of school-based education has thus far been
controlled by input and processes (course schedules and the provi-
sion of instruction, curricula, rules governing grading and student
retention or promotion, approval of textbooks, etc.) rather than by
output.
In Chapters 8 to 10, we discuss the implications of educational
standards in detail. We begin with curriculum development (as
core curricula and the school-based curriculum grow in importan-
ce and take the place of detailed centralised curricula), go on to
consider monitoring and evaluation in Chapter 9 and, finally, out-
line the changes that will be necessary in the work of the educa-
tional support systems in Chapter 10.

8.1 Curricular Practice and Controlling the

Work of Schools
The introduction of national educational standards will, of course,
not be without consequences for the prevailing form of managing
schools and learning in Germany, with the aid of curricula pres-
cribed by the state ministries and designated material such as text-

81
 books, teaching aids, etc. The experiences of other countries with
educational standards show that the implementation of this new
form of output-driven management is certain to prompt changes
in the work of schools, but the implications for the curricula are
not as clear-cut; rather, the options here are diverse and open-end-
ed. It is thus necessary to consider the existing possibilities for cur-
ricular control of classroom instruction in order to make sound
decisions about desirable future developments.
Thus far, the curricula for the individual German states have deter-
mined to a greater or lesser extent what (material and content) is
to be taught, and when (grade), how (method) and where (school
type) this is to occur. Accordingly, the development and implemen-
tation of curricula not only represents a process by which culture
and societal educational goals are selected and transformed into
state performance targets (as detailed in Chapter 5), it also consti-
tutes an attempt to standardise classroom practice and desired edu-
cational outcomes. The definition of curricula from the historical
and social perspective has thus also been the subject of lively
discussion in the public, educational policy, legal, administrative
and professional teaching domains. The dominant role of the state
in this process has remained essentially undisputed, however
(Biehl et al., 1998).
International comparison of modern societies distinguishes four
archetypal variants of state regulation of instruction which are still
in force and are effective irrespective of the form and the medium
of control, be it curricula or standards (Biehl et al. 1996):
(a) Assessment model
Various forms of exit controls, such as standardised performance
assessments, define in relatively precise terms what schools are
supposed to have achieved at given points of measurement. At
the same time, they reflect what has actually been achieved.
Teachers are well advised to gear their instruction to these exit
examinations, meaning that, to all intents and purposes, class-
room instruction is indirectly regulated.
(b) Examen Artium model
Instead of exit exams, entrance examinations controlling ad-
mission to particular educational institutions have the function
of regulating instruction at the respective feeder institutions. For
example, college entrance examinations regulate instruction at
secondary schools and increase the competition between these
institutions. As in the assessment model, instruction is subject to
indirect regulation.

82
 (c) Philanthropic model
On the one hand, the state prescribes material and methods of
instruction in the form of binding curricula, though these para-
meters tend to be formulated only at a general level. On the
other hand, the state initiates potential innovations in schools
by setting up pilot reform projects. Thus, both the material
covered in lessons and the methods practised are directly regu-
lated by the objectives set out in the curriculum.
(d) Classical bureaucratic model
Here, the state concentrates on establishing a curriculum that
defines the content and material to be covered by schools
sometimes in very precise terms and developing specific
norms for the different school forms to guide the selection pro-
cess. In contrast to the philanthropic model, the choice of
methods, and thus responsibility for conducting lessons, is left to
the teachers, according to a kind of licence principle. This form
of state control of the education system works on the assump-
tion that prescribing curricula and ensuring that teachers are
properly trained and licensed is enough to ensure that educatio-
nal goals are achieved. Accordingly, output-driven controls tend
not to be a feature of this system.
The German system is a hybrid one, in which the quality of lear-
ning outcomes is understood to be assured by official curricula,
examinations for prospective teachers, and semi-standardised
school-leaving examinations, e.g., the Abitur and set requirements
for intermediate school-leaving certificates. However, studies such
as TIMSS and PISA have shown that this kind of system has its
weaknesses, and it is hoped that educational standards will help to
rectify the situation. But what are the implications for the traditio-
nal methods of control and, above all, what are the consequences
for curricula and curriculum development?
In radical models of output-driven management, centralised curri-
cula at the national or as is the case in Germany state level lose
virtually all importance as an element guiding the planning of
instruction. The assumption is that dual regulation will not prevail
for long and that, under output-driven management of the edu-
cation system, conventional curricula must and will give way to a
targeted, standards-based approach that is committed to the auto-
nomy of individual schools, so that the competency goals aspired
to can really be achieved.
Thus, school-based learning is controlled by national, uniform,
binding educational standards and the monitoring of these stan-

83
 dards on the one hand, and by curricula developed on the local
and (individual) school level on the other. The established fact that
curricula do not clearly and reliably deliver the qualifications and
quality assurance expected of them can be cited as justification for
this position. The drawbacks of this new form of control are just as
apparent, however. The burden on individual schools quickly be-
comes very heavy, especially if the transition to the new system is
swift. Moreover, state and society forego the chance to make
visible and binding the body of knowledge and skills, but also
norms and values, that is necessary indeed indispensable for
active participation in our culture.
This is why, on the other hand, models of national curricula esta-
blish a control system in which binding educational standards and
competency requirements, as well as subjects, topics and contents,
and sometimes even methods of instruction are centrally pre-
scribed. These national curricula serve to raise quality awareness
for the work of schools, help schools to make rational choices
based on performance criteria, and prompt a national discussion
on societal expectations of schools. Undeniably, however, the up-
shot of this approach is also that restrictions are placed on the
efforts of individual schools, to the point that they are spoon-fed,
and are unable to respond to local challenges or specific develop-
mental tasks. This results in a form of standardisation that is more
likely to undermine than to bolster motivation and effort within
schools. Indeed, the autonomy of the individual school is an essen-
tial condition for enhanced performance and competition.
Accordingly, it will be no easy task to modify a form of managing
the education system that has been in place for almost two hund-
red years, and to introduce another principle. It is not so much a
theoretical problem of the legitimacy of control, as the system will
be managed in any case, but a problem of practical restructuring,
which will confront those involved in the education process with
new and unfamiliar challenges. The innovations must thus be
implemented with utmost care to ensure that work done with the
best of intentions does not turn out to be counterproductive.
The first task will be to present the planned changes in a clear and
convincing manner, so that they are accepted across the board
by individual schools, by students, parents and teachers, as well
as by society as a whole. After all, society has good reasons for
expecting that its image of the goals and values, and present and
future structure of state, society and culture find acceptance in
schools and are reflected in the knowledge and competencies of
learners.

84
 8.2 Core Curricula
In our opinion, a control strategy is needed that systematically
combines the directive function of national educational standards
with the orientation function of curricula, and does so in such
a way that the autonomy of individual schools is increased.
By drawing up subject-specific core curricula, it will be possible to
develop an integrated control system of this kind, which will be
compatible with the competency requirements developed in edu-
cational standards, on the one hand, and receptive to temporal
sequencing and concrete instructional recommendations constitu-
ting indispensable guidelines for everyday classroom practice, on
the other.
Although comparable in terms of their functions, the core curri-
cula developed and prescribed by the governments of different
countries can also take a variety of forms. They may be compact,
focused, defined in terms of competency levels, brief and to the
point, oriented towards credentials or competencies, geared to
central themes and big ideas, or defined by work in specific sub-
jects, as in Norway or in the example of the NCTM presented in
Chapter 3. However, there is also a temptation to draw up core
curricula (that can then no longer be termed core) that tend to
be more expansive, to devote too much attention to specific sub-
jects, to undermine the responsibilities of individual schools, and
to resort to familiar models of bureaucratic control and visions of
curricular omnipotence. It is evident that there is not yet a clear
standard definition for the concept of the core curriculum. This
does not mean that the development of core curricula is expen-
dable, however. Rather, it is important that those engaged in this
work state in very clear terms how they define core curricula,
and explain how core curricula relate to educational standards
(see Tenorth 2001).
In the concept proposed here, educational standards and core cur-
ricula are not mutually exclusive; rather, they overlap and comple-
ment one another. Both core curricula and educational standards
are elements of a system intended to improve and control the qua-
lity of the education system. In terms of their function, educatio-
nal standards are concerned with output, and specify correspon-
ding performance targets, whereas core curricula are concerned
with input, i.e., the selection of educational topics and contents
and the structure of teaching and learning processes. Core curri-
cula and educational standards converge in the theoretical big
ideas and competency models. Standards add to this common

85
 core by differentiating competency levels and requirements and
paving the way for concrete assessment programmes, whereas core
curricula enumerate topics that can be used to structure the tea-
ching and learning process and give suggestions for classroom
practice. Hence, core curricula comprise more than just educatio-
nal standards or individual-based competency models. They open
up a whole world of learning.
To conclude, educational standards by no means render the curri-
cula obsolete, because standards cannot assume the curricular
function of providing a framework for the sequencing and arrange-
ment of educational content and processes. However, it will make
sense to gradually modify the curricula to come closer to core cur-
ricula. In fact, curriculum development in Germany has increa-
singly been moving in this direction for some years now. Edu-
cational standards and core curricula should, in future, be deve-
loped side by side. The details of possible lesson topics, texts to be
read, and key study skills can then be increasingly, but carefully,
transferred from the state to the school level.

8.3 Educational Standards, Core Curricula and the

Canon of General Knowledge
The merits of this new form of management compared with the
traditional educational canon are clearly apparent. For one thing,
educational standards and core curricula are not simply an
attempt to revive the historical tradition of a classical educational
canon. In the public debate in Germany (and indeed elsewhere),
the term canon tends to reflect a certain traditional outlook on
education and the knowledge it imparts. With its programmatic or
polemic focus on the canon of the so-called higher schools, the
German discussion of the canon is not only restricted to particular
institutions but, at the same time, its substance and orientations
are shaped by a certain social background. The educational
canon is read and passed down against the background of Euro-
pean, bourgeois, scholarly culture, as an expression of a particular
lifestyle, not only in the classroom, but in various cultural charac-
teristics and in a specific form of sociability which have quality cri-
teria of their own and signal, through codified patterns, that the
individual has acquired and participates in the view of the world as
structured by the canon. The European educational canon then
tends to be mourned as a bygone experience of the world, rather
than perceived as a living reality.

86
 Although core curricula also reflect the way a culture sees itself,
they are not specific to a particular social class, but express a canon
of general knowledge that is intended to be universal, to apply to
all of those growing up in a society. Its performance targets relate
to basic cultural skills, clearly embedded in the school context, and
translated into concrete terms in compulsory learning processes,
where they are regarded as instances of standardisation and con-
trol. When the canon of general knowledge is perceived in this way,
i.e., as a scholastic canon or a form of canonisation of school-based
learning processes, the functional equivalences to the traditional
approach become apparent, and it becomes clear that schools will
never be able to abandon canonisation entirely. However, those
involved in the development of core curricula can learn from the
experiences of this traditional, classical educational canon
The history of this canon, and the ongoing efforts to define those
elements of a culture that need to be handed down in order for
young people to become self-determined participants in society,
make it clear that a core curriculum, if defined solely in terms of
content, will not suffice to standardise work in schools. Content
and bodies of knowledge that allow us to find our way around the
world are indispensable, but we must not overlook the immanent
presence of quality criteria and the necessary process of acquiring
a canon if we want to understand how canonisation functions.
To regulate the canonisation of knowledge and attitudes, motives
and orientations, therefore, core curricula must be perceived as a
unity of goals and topics, prescribed competencies and quality
criteria, models of good living and proper learning. As such, they
are a vital complement to the system of educational standards,
which they express concrete terms.
In the school setting, the core curriculum thus represents the struc-
ture of general knowledge and an initiation into the essential
means of discovering the world: linguistic and literary, mathemati-
cal and scientific, historical and social scientific, as well as aesthetic
and expressive dimensions of fundamental general knowledge.
School as an institution hence becomes the societal form in which
cultures define the contents and norms of life in increasingly
similar terms worldwide and thus also becomes the pedagogical
form in which our culture is converted into teaching content and
its core knowledge and orientations are expressed in binding
terms.
To summarise, core curricula can facilitate and document the reali-
sation of these aims because:

87
 they define a compulsory framework of subjects,
they identify central topics and contents,
they describe the competencies that students are expected to
acquire and
they do this in clear, unequivocal and binding terms. 3
Accordingly, core curricula are compatible with both a decentra-
lised form of control based on school autonomy and with the
centralised specification of minimum standards.
Core curricula do not spell out the entirety, but the indispen-
sable minimum of topics, contents and methods of instruction to
be covered at school.
From the practical and theoretical perspective, these curricula
thus make it possible to go into more detail within a particular
subject or to expand on it by reference to other subjects, linking
up with associated topics in other domains.
Core curricula thus assimilate the constructive elements of pre-
vious curricula and guidelines. With their detailed suggestions
for conveying certain teaching contents, these represent impor-
tant groundwork for the support system to be set up to assist
schools with questions of instructional practice and curriculum
development.
They enable profiles to be developed at the individual school
level, combined with a unified approach at the system level and
concerning the age cohorts of successive student generations.
Finally, the link between the content and competency dimen-
sions of the performance targets means that the curricula are
compatible with both the development of educational standards
and the accurate measurement of levels of performance attained
by schools and by individual learners.
In a system of deregulated, open and decentralised control, core
curricula make it possible for local projects and particular am-
bitions to be tested against a model that claims to be general, but
that must be translated into teaching content before it can take
effect. As such, core curricula and educational standards together
provide a frame of reference that can initiate, support, guide and
standardise work within schools. They do not constitute the curri-
culum for an individual school; rather, they enable schools, tea-
chers and departments to devise their own forms of instruction,
which thus draw on their professional expertise and can be con-
trolled by empirical means.

3
For the context, see Bttcher & Kalb (2002) and Tenorth (2001).

88
 9. Using Educational Standards for Purposes
of Monitoring, Evaluation and Individual
Diagnosis
As described in the previous chapter, the main difference between
educational standards and core curricula is that standards specify
clear competency requirements and thus serve as benchmarks for
the evaluation of learning outcomes. They do not just provide
guidelines a function that can also be fulfilled by curricula but
are a key element of output-driven management systems. More spe-
cifically, standards define targets against which educational output
can be assessed and evaluated. In the following, we show how stan-
dards and standards-based testing can be used to provide stake-
holders with feedback on educational outcomes.
In Chapter 7, we distinguished four purposes served by empirical
student assessment and drew attention to some of the implications
that the varying objectives can have for test development. Since
empirical tests of competency models can be considered part of the
test development phase (see Chapter 7), standards-based testing
essentially serves three main purposes in educational practice.
Investigations of student performance serve to:
1. monitor whether educational standards are being attained: Are
all students meeting the minimum standards? Is the distribution
of students across the competency levels consistent with expec-
tations? etc. (educational monitoring),
2. gauge the effectiveness of school development programmes and
teaching strategies and thus pave the way for the improvement
of individual schools (school evaluation),
3. provide an insight into the strengths and weaknesses of indi-
vidual students, so that targeted support measures can be pre-
scribed (individual diagnosis).

In the following, these three objectives are described in more

detail. The demands that regular surveys of student performance
will place on the infrastructure of the German education system
are also outlined.

9.1 The Difference between Educational Monitoring

and Evaluation
Educational standards provide stakeholders with a plumb line for
evaluating how students are performing relative to these standards

89
 at regular intervals. This kind of continuous educational monito-
ring serves a different purpose than evaluations of individual
schools or instructional processes (see Klieme, Baumert & Schwip-
pert 2001 for details of this difference).
Educational monitoring studies assess the outcomes of an educatio-
nal system in terms of its students achievement, with the aim of
providing comprehensive insights into the systems current
strengths and weaknesses. The results are judged against target cri-
teria that have been previously specified in educational standards,
for example. Data gathered within a longitudinal design (e.g., with
regular assessments conducted every three to five years) can be
used to explore changes over time. Furthermore, provided that the
sample size and accuracy of measurement allow, data can be bro-
ken down by subpopulations (e.g., countries or school types). The
best known example of educational monitoring is currently the
OECDs PISA study, which assesses reading, mathematics and scien-
ce literacy in international comparison in three-year cycles. The
PISA target criteria are not stipulated in national educational stan-
dards, but in competency models drawn up by international panels
of experts on the basis of pedagogical and subject didactic re-
search. To all intents and purposes, the consortium responsible for
the PISA study in Germany has defined minimum standards within
these competency models: students assigned to the lowest compe-
tency level are to judged to be at risk for leaving school without
qualifications and for failing to make the transition to a good voca-
tional training programme (Baumert et al. 2001).
At a relatively high level of aggregation e.g., when comparing
states, school types or, in some cases, individual schools educatio-
nal monitoring also has evaluative qualities. Clearly, in determi-
ning the extent to which a state, school type or individual school
attains stipulated targets, we are making an evaluative appraisal of
the subpopulation in question. In keeping with the terminology
used in educational research, however, we reserve the term evalu-
ation for cases in which the effectiveness of a specific intervention
or the performance of a single institution (e.g., a school) is to be
assessed. Whereas educational monitoring takes a broad, non-spe-
cific approach, evaluation studies aim to provide substantive ans-
wers to specific questions, e.g., whether or not to persist with a par-
ticular instructional concept, to introduce additional support mea-
sures, etc. As such, evaluation studies require detailed assessment
of the interventions and factors under consideration and agree-
ment on the causes at issue. It is crucial that the measurement
instruments administered are aligned with the goals of the institu-

90
 tion under evaluation and that they assess precisely those aspects
of performance that the intervention was designed to enhance.
For these reasons, it is not generally possible for a single study to
fulfil the purposes of both monitoring and evaluation. Educational
monitoring entails the broadest possible assessment of a variety
of competency domains, whereas evaluation involves the focused
assessment of a limited set of critical competencies (and other
goals) that have been targeted by a particular instructional
measure or by the school as a whole. Educational monitoring
should occur at the system level and cover as many heterogeneous
schools as possible. Evaluation studies are concerned with particu-
lar schools and classes, and provide them with targeted feedback.
Educational monitoring must be planned at the central level, by
the responsible authorities and ministries, whereas evaluation can
be initiated by the schools themselves.
Nevertheless, it is quite feasible for an instrument that has been
tried and tested in the context of educational monitoring to be
used to evaluate an individual school provided, of course, that
the assessment or questionnaire scale taps an aspect that is rele-
vant to the school being evaluated. Data obtained from educatio-
nal monitoring studies can be used to generate norm-referenced
standards, thus enabling schools to determine where they stand in
relation to other schools. For example, it might be important for an
experimental school with a strong profile in the fine arts and aes-
thetics to show that it does not lag behind comparable schools in
the hard subjects such as mathematics and science. This could be
tested by the TIMSS assessment, for example, which has been used
to measure mathematics and science performance throughout
Germany.

9.2 Use of Standards in Educational Monitoring

Regular educational monitoring has long been standard practice
in the education systems of most industrial countries. The German-
speaking countries, where management of the school system is still
entirely input-driven, are now virtually the only exception to this
rule. These countries have traditionally been very reluctant to
introduce standardised performance assessments, which are often
thought to encroach on the professional responsibilities of edu-
cational administrators and teachers. A similar position was main-
tained in the Scandinavian countries and several English-speaking
countries until the mid-1980s, but this policy has since been over-
turned. Experts consider this change of tack to be one of the main

91
 reasons for the improved performance levels of these countries in
international student assessments not simply because the stu-
dents are now more familiar with the tests, but because there real-
ly has been an improvement in their levels of achievement. Regular
educational monitoring at the overall system level provides policy-
makers and educators with crucial feedback on school effectiveness
and the impact of reform measures, and identifies possible points
of intervention.
When designing a monitoring system, countries have a great
deal of freedom to shape an individual approach, and utilise this
room for manoeuvre in various ways. Some of the questions to be
addressed, and to which different answers may well be found, are
as follows:
Is the monitoring programme limited to a representative sample
of schools or does it cover all schools?
Is the participation of schools, individual students or teachers
voluntary or compulsory?
How often are assessments conducted; which age groups and
subjects are covered?
How are the results of individual schools or classes handled? Are
results actually computed at these levels, or is the analysis restric-
ted to the system level? Are results at the school and class level
released to the public? Are they intended to help parents make
more informed educational decisions? Are results reported to the
educational authorities, or are individual feedback reports prepa-
red for the participating schools or teachers only? Are the results
of a school reported as raw scores, e.g., the average number of
points scored in a test, or are they adjusted to take account of
contextual factors (the students social backgrounds, their perfor-
mance levels upon entering the school, the proportion of stu-
dents from immigrant families, etc.), thus giving a fair apprai-
sal of performance at the school in question?
What kind of tests are involved? Is declarative knowledge tested
by means of straightforward multiple-choice questions, as has
traditionally been the case in the USA, for example, or is pro-
cedural knowledge examined in, for example, complex hands-
on tasks, group tasks, etc.? Is the assessment of results norm-
referenced or criterion-referenced (see Chapter 7)?
Who is responsible for planning, administering and analysing
the assessments? How are these tasks divided between the
schools themselves, government authorities, independent test
agencies and commercial suppliers?

92
 Lessons drawn from the experiences of other countries should be
taken into careful and systematic consideration here. In the USA,
the country with the most comprehensive system of large-scale
assessment, for example, it is now generally acknowledged that
relentless testing and superficial measurement can have negative
effects on the quality of instruction (teaching to the test). At the
same time, US experts have developed refined assessment and
accountability models that avoid precisely these pitfalls (National
Research Council 2001). In Great Britain, experience has shown
that publishing league tables based on schools mean test scores is
unfair and often counterproductive.
In Germany, the alarming results of the TIMSS and PISA studies
have put educational monitoring back on the political agenda.
Subsequent to TIMSS, several states conducted monitoring studies
that differed in many of the strategic aspects listed above. Thus far,
however, these differences have been disregarded by both the Ger-
man general public and the scientific community. For example, the
difference between studies of representative student samples (e.g.,
TIMSS and PISA) and assessments covering all of the students in a
region (e.g., the LAU study in Hamburg and the MARKUS study in
Rhineland-Palatinate) has been largely ignored. The same holds for
the distinction between norm-referenced ranking tables and crite-
rion-referenced feedback.
It would go beyond the scope of this report to discuss the design of
monitoring studies in detail (but see the volume on educational
measurement in schools edited by Weinert, 2001, on behalf of the
KMK [Leistungsmessungen in Schulen]). Ideally, the German states
should continue to take various approaches, to try out different
variants of educational monitoring, and to learn from one another.
National or state-specific studies can be synchronised with the
international student assessments in which Germany is now a re-
gular participant and conducted within the structural and tem-
poral framework of these studies. For example, future assessments
in the lower secondary domain could be appended to the OECDs
three-yearly PISA study, as was the case for PISA/PISA-E 2000 and is
planned for PISA 2003.
In the context of this report, it is vital that the introduction of
national educational standards lay a strong foundation for
meaningful and informative studies of educational outcomes. Once
assessment procedures have been developed to operationalise
the standards and to diagnose the competency levels attained
(as described in Chapter 7), they can also be used for the purposes

93
 of educational monitoring. This would mean that a national edu-
cational monitoring system would no longer be dependent on
using the PISA, TIMSS or PIRLS/IGLU scales as criteria for com-
parison, but could deploy Germany-specific, nationally valid mea-
surement instruments and assessment principles. Embedding these
tests in psychologically sound competency models based on subject
didactic expertise will ensure that the results do not simply lead to
the norm-referenced comparison of countries, states or schools, but
that they show how students are performing relative to pre-deter-
mined levels of mastery (criterion-referenced assessment). The qua-
lity standards set by the PISA study in this respect are international-
ly recognised and should not be undercut by national test instru-
ments. On this basis, the undesirable side effects associated with
superficial large-scale assessments in the USA, in particular, can be
avoided.
Although not essential, it would be beneficial and conducive to
quality assurance in Germany for national educational standards
to be complemented by a national educational monitoring system.
Students mastery of the competencies stipulated in the standards
could then be monitored every three to five years in different
samples, throughout the country and, under certain circumstan-
ces, in cross-state comparison. One way of arranging this would be
to issue a call for tender and to commission rotating research insti-
tutes or consortia with the design and implementation of the
monitoring system, as is currently standard practice in internatio-
nal and national student assessments. Alternatively, a new institute
could be set up specifically for this purpose. In either case, what is
needed is a national body an educational monitoring agency
that is responsible for the ongoing assessments, for commissioning
panels of experts, and for quality assurance. This agency could (but
does not necessarily have to) be identical with the test develop-
ment agency described in Section 7.3.
After each assessment cycle in such a national educational monito-
ring system, a selection of items could be released for use in state-
level monitoring and evaluation studies. In Austria, for example, a
test compiled from released TIMSS items was used by the schools
themselves to assess student learning. Of course, these released
items need to be replaced, and test construction is therefore
necessarily an ongoing process. New items are piloted in each
assessment, empirical tests are run to determine how well they fit
the test and the competency model, and suitable items are in-
cluded in next assessment cycle. In this way, the testing pro-
gramme can be updated and the body of tasks used to capture

94
 specific aspects of performance can be expanded on an ongoing
basis, while ensuring that the measurements remain comparable
over time.
The tasks involved in designing a monitoring study (compiling
assessments and questionnaires, drawing a sample, etc.) and pro-
viding an expert interpretation of results require the input of
various disciplines: empirical educational research, pedagogical
and psychological methods, school pedagogy, and subject didac-
tics. Past experience has shown that it pays to entrust interdis-
ciplinary consortia with these tasks. The logistics of test applica-
tion, on the other hand, can be delegated to commercial agencies.
In Germany, it is currently standard practice to deploy specially
trained, external examiners to administer monitoring studies in
schools. In national studies, this function could be transferred to
the schools teaching staff, as is customary elsewhere. This kind of
involvement in the process may be crucial for teachers acceptance
of and identification with the assessment instruments. However,
the tasks of processing the results (coding responses, controlling
the objectivity of analysis, testing the accuracy of measurement
and the descriptive power of the tests, and providing states, school
types and individual schools with feedback on how well their stu-
dents are meeting educational standards) must be centralised,
possibly with the participation of service providers specialising in
this kind of data management. Overall responsibility for analysing
and interpreting the results should rest with the experts com-
missioned to perform this task, however.

9.3 Evaluation on the School Level

In principle, monitoring and evaluation studies should be regarded
as two different types of empirical research, each bound by its own
quality standards. To a certain extent, however, the same assess-
ment instruments can be used in both types of study. Whereas edu-
cational monitoring is the responsibility of a centralised agency
(see above), evaluation studies may be initiated by the schools
themselves, established as part of experimental programmes, or
conducted in the context of (subject-specific) didactic research.
Various approaches can be taken to school evaluation; some have
already been tried out in Germany. For example, the states can
train advisors to assist with school self-evaluation or set up inde-
pendent evaluation programmes in which schools can opt to parti-
cipate. A market-based system is also conceivable, with various sup-
pliers producing evaluation instruments, administering assess-

95
 ments, analysing results and reporting back to the schools. In this
case, schools would need the budgetary resources to buy in these
services. The process of designing school evaluation studies in-
volves the same strategic decisions as the design of educational
monitoring programmes (see p. 80f.). The main questions here are
whether regular evaluation is to be made compulsory for schools
(as in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, for example); how the data
will be handled and who will be given access to results; and which
consequences will be drawn from problematic test results (e.g., pro-
viding schools with further advisory services). These decisions raise
numerous pedagogical, strategic, legal and ethical questions that
deserve careful consideration. However, the experiences of other
countries in recent years indicate that school evaluations provi-
ded that they really do address the relevant pedagogical issues
generate welcome feedback and can identify important points of
intervention for teaching and school development.
Apart from giving schools a reliable indication of their current
strengths and weaknesses, the data contained in these feedback
reports provide schools with a frame of reference against which
they can specify their (future) goals, and if the evaluation proce-
dure is repeated on a regular basis monitor and evaluate change
over time.
The quality of the feedback report is decisive for:
schools accepting the results;
analysing the reasons behind the results of individual schools;
planning and effecting targeted improvements;
forging constructive agreements between the school and its
support systems.

Publishing the results of individual schools in league or ranking

tables has proved counterproductive and should therefore be avoi-
ded.
A feedback report can be considered fair if apart from giving
details of the students performance it controls for relevant back-
ground features. These include, most importantly, the students
gender, the language they speak at home, and their parents edu-
cational and vocational qualifications and socio-economic status.
This kind of adjustment is now an integral part of the repertoire
of school research and evaluation studies. The feedback reports
sent to the German PISA schools can be regarded as exemplary
these reports indicated how well the schools were performing in

96
 relation to schools with comparable student bodies (Stanat et al.
2002).
Nevertheless, previous experience with school evaluation and feed-
back reports in empirical studies has shown that most schools need
external guidance to develop a suitable evaluation strategy, inter-
pret the results, and draw up a road map for future school develop-
ment. If the necessary support and advisory services are not provi-
ded (see Chapter 10), there is a risk that evaluation studies will not
have the intended effect but will, in the long run, be regarded as
an arduous yet futile exercise by those concerned in the schools.

9.4 Implications for Individual Diagnosis and Support

As a rule, nationwide monitoring studies are not designed to pro-
vide profiles of individual student achievement. The lowest aggre-
gate level at which sufficiently accurate and valid results can be
reported is the school or, under certain conditions, the class. The
same applies to school-specific evaluations. There are several
reasons for this. First, time constraints simply do not allow all stu-
dents to be tested in the broad range of competencies covered by
educational standards. Indeed, for the entire spectrum to be
covered at the school level, different students have to work on
different packages of test items (in a test booklet rotation design;
see Chapter 7). This makes it impossible for results to be compared
at the individual level. Another reason is that the accuracy of
measurement is not high enough at the level of the individual stu-
dent. Accordingly, individual students scores in monitoring and
evaluation studies are not generally reported back to their schools
and teachers.
Yet, by their very nature, the tests do measure individual compe-
tencies and can, in principle, be used for the purposes of individual
diagnosis. The design of the particular study determines whether,
and to what extent, conclusions can be drawn about individual stu-
dents. If, for example, an evaluation aims to compare the perfor-
mance of different classes in a school with respect to certain cri-
teria, broadly-based instruments may be administered to capture
all aspects of between-class differences. This may mean that the
results do not reflect the profiles of individual students. If, on the
other hand, the evaluation is designed to relate students learning
outcomes to individual background characteristics, it is of course
essential that the test provide a valid and reliable measure of indi-
vidual student performance.

97
 In general, it is important to bear in mind that many test applica-
tions have limited information value for individual diagnosis. Many
of the problems that have arisen in the USA in the context of high-
stakes assessments (i.e., tests that have direct implications for those
involved, in that they are used to place students in particular pro-
grams or to determine the amount of funding allocated to a
school, for example) could have been avoided if people had been
more careful to distinguish between educational monitoring,
evaluation at the school and class level, and individual diagnosis
(see also National Research Council 2001). Any kind of individual
feedback on student performance (even if it is only reported to the
teacher) has psychological implications for students self-concept
and development. A test instrument that is suited to monitoring
and evaluation is not necessarily guaranteed to be fair at the indi-
vidual level. Because standards-based tests are rooted in models of
individual competency development, however, they are ideal for
the purposes of individual diagnosis. Still, it is crucial that the
diagnostic assessment is performed in the context of a suitable test
design and with the necessary pedagogical responsibility. If moni-
toring programmes and school evaluation studies are based on
competency models, the consequences drawn for school improve-
ment will benefit individual students, even if individual test scores
are not reported. Test applications used for the detailed diagnosis
of individual students should be the teachers responsibility.

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 10. Support Systems and Their Responsibilities
The introduction of educational standards will mean that far-
reaching changes are imposed on an established school system.
The system is certainly in need of a thorough overhaul, as recent
research findings on the performance of German schools and their
students have shown. The concept of educational standards pro-
posed in this report calls for rethinking the way the education
system is managed. As a result, schools will be faced with new
challenges and responsibilities, but they will also have more room
for individual manoeuvre and more possibilities to shape and
structure their work as they see fit (see Chapter 4).
Introducing and successively implementing educational standards
is a long-term process that will require careful preparation, super-
vision and support. Whether or not educational standards have the
desired effect on the education system hinges on more than the
quality of the competency models and assessment methods em-
ployed. It is at least as important that the educational standards
are implemented effectively in the classroom. The objectives laid
down in the standards determine the direction to be taken; they
commit schools and teachers to the pursuit of common goals.
Nevertheless, it is vital that teachers and ultimately students and
parents identify with these goals and adopt them as their own.
Competency models and assessment methods do not constitute
detailed teaching directives. Rather, they are aids, or more precise-
ly powerful tools, that can be used to gear instruction towards the
attainment of learning goals and to adjust the course taken as
necessary. Teachers will have to learn how to use these new tools
with pedagogical and professional expertise. Thus, educational
standards can only develop their full potential with the active par-
ticipation of all those involved. Teachers and head teachers will
play a key role here.
Lessons drawn from the experiences of other countries where
national (core) curricula and standards have been introduced show
just how important it is to provide schools with appropriate sup-
port. In England, for example, the introduction of the national cur-
riculum was, from the outset, seen in connection with the profes-
sionalisation of teachers. A great volume of written material was
produced, supplemented by in-service teacher training. Clearly, it
will be a relatively challenging task to translate a curriculum con-
taining few content objectives and even fewer teaching guidelines
into action in the classroom. It is debatable whether in-service
training alone will be enough to prepare teachers for this new

99
 undertaking. In England, there was a lively discussion on whether
primary teachers, in particular, have a secure enough understan-
ding of all the subject areas they are required to teach to develop a
curriculum for their own schools and classrooms on the basis of
the few parameters laid down in the standards.
For educational standards to be developed and put into practice in
the German school system, a plan of action for their implementa-
tion must be drawn up, with the aims of:
1. ensuring that all of the parties involved identify with and accept
the educational standards,
2. introducing teachers and schools to work with educational stan-
dards and
3. making teachers and schools aware of the benefits to be reaped
from the effective use and application of the educational stan-
dards.

Schools will thus have to be provided with information, guidance,

in-service training and advice as needed. It is particularly impor-
tant that they can rely on receiving the necessary assistance when
assessments identify problems that need to be addressed and chan-
ges that need to be made. Taken together, a broad range of sup-
port mechanisms will have to be put in place at an early stage if
the standards are to be accepted by schools and implemented
according to plan.
Consequently, the institutions responsible for supporting the work
of schools and for providing teachers with the necessary pedagogi-
cal skills and professional expertise must be systematically involved
in the process. This means that
the teacher training institutions (universities, seminars, in-service
training institutes),
the state institutes for teacher education and curriculum deve-
lopment (Landesinstitute; referred to in the following as state
education institutes) and
the school supervisory authorities (Schulaufsicht)

will become important support systems - first, for the introduction

of educational standards and, later, for their implementation in
everyday classroom practice and for the resolution of any problems
that may arise. In the following, we outline the central functions
and responsibilities of these support systems in the context of work
with educational standards.

100
 However, it is important to note that these institutions will only be
able to provide the required support if the underlying conditions
are favourable. It is not only a question of the necessary resources
and skills being in place, or of arrangements, agreements and
plans being made on a timely basis. Rather, one vital condition for
the work of the support systems is that a strong case be made at
the policy level for the introduction of educational standards and
that the long-term perspectives be mapped out clearly. Official
statements evincing firm political intentions and objectives, and,
more importantly, indicating how schools and teachers will ulti-
mately benefit (professionally and personally) from the introduc-
tion of educational standards in their daily routine will be crucial
for the acceptance of the standards. The reception of the venture
as a whole and of the support mechanisms in particular will hinge
on whether schools and teachers identify with the proposed shift
from input-driven to output-driven management of the education
system. Schools should view the competency models, assessments
and related information, recommendations and in-service training
programmes as road maps, guidelines, tools or frameworks for
action, rather than as new directives imposed by the government,
and to be observed to the letter in the classroom. Schools will
accept the standards, their functions and purposes, if they are
aware of their limits and of their long-term objectives, namely, to
give schools more responsibility and more scope to shape and
structure their own work. This involves approaching the teachers
in their professional capacity and having stated clear expec-
tations trusting in their ability to cope with the new challenges
posed by educational standards. From this perspective, it will be
much easier for schools to accept the services provided by the
support systems as valuable assistance.

10.1 Fostering the Acceptance of Educational Standards

The acceptance of educational standards and of their diverse impli-
cations for classroom practice hinges on four key factors. The first
and perhaps most important factor concerns the rationale that is
presented for the enterprise as a whole. Sufficient grounds for the
introduction of educational standards are found not least in the
present report. However, it will be easier for teachers to identify
with the respective arguments if they relate directly to familiar
problems or to difficulties encountered on a daily basis. Whereas
this first factor is processed on the rational or cognitive level, the
effects of the other three conditions for the acceptance of educatio-

101
 nal standards impact rather on the motivational and attitudinal
levels. According to the second factor, teachers will be more likely
to accept the standards if they believe they afford increased room
for individual manoeuvre and more scope to plan and conduct their
lessons on the strength of their professional knowledge and exper-
tise. It is important, however, that this increased latitude in
teaching practice not trigger insecurity (by giving teachers the fee-
ling that they are being left entirely to their own devices) or give
them the impression that work is simply being dumped on them
(Teachers/schools are even expected to develop the curricula
themselves now!). What is needed are sound guidelines about
potential strategies and approaches, leaving teachers ample scope
to pick and choose at their discretion. The third factor relates to
teachers sense of being able to come to grips with and learn to
master all aspects of the new system of educational standards.
These standards present schools and teachers with developmental
tasks. To succeed, they must know what needs to be done, have a
firm belief that they are able to meet these demands, and form a
clear idea of how this can be achieved. As soon as they begin
working with educational standards, they should sense that this
work opens up new perspectives, that it is beneficial and can be
mastered. Finally, the fourth factor relates to the view that the
introduction of standards is a multiparty professional activity, in
which schools and teachers cooperate with the other players to get
results.
How can the individual support systems help to promote the accep-
tance of educational standards? It goes without saying that the
teacher training institutions can play a key role in ensuring an in-
depth understanding of the standards in all three phases of the
training process (i.e., theoretical training at university; practical
training in schools combined with seminars organised by the
school administration; in-service training). Initially, their work will
focus on preparing the necessary introductory information about
standards and the function of standards in the education system.
From the very outset, however, the training institutions will also
need to show how they intend to provide teachers with the vital
know-how on working with standards. Levels of acceptance will be
higher if systematic in-service training programmes on working
with standards are scheduled and carried out. Teacher training
institutions can thus further the acceptance of standards by presen-
ting the underlying rationale, referring to the sound knowledge
base (research findings, competency models) that structures
the new tasks, preparing targeted training programmes and, in so

102
 doing, emphasising that educational standards present a shared
challenge that calls for research and in-service training in equal
measures.
The state education institutes will also have a significant role to play
in disseminating introductory information about educational stan-
dards. However, their main efforts must be directed at showing
how they will support the work of schools by issuing recommen-
dations, modifying curricula, providing easily adaptable material,
ensuring intelligent information management and, above all,
giving targeted advice on standards-related issues (e.g., competen-
cy models or tests) and on broader issues of school development as
and when this is required.
The school supervisory authorities, by comparison, will be less in-
volved in the information dissemination process, but can help
foster the acceptance of educational standards by spelling out their
new role in this context at an early stage. Output will also be the
decisive point of reference for the school supervisory authorities,
and the dual function of supervision and consulting will keep them
fully occupied, particularly where responses to the findings of edu-
cational monitoring are concerned. Here, it should be clear from
the outset that the primary concern of the school supervisory
authorities must be to help provide constructive solutions to any
problems that emerge and to offer the necessary assistance. They
can also promote the acceptance of educational standards by wel-
coming the introduction of the standards, but showing restraint in
the implementation process. For example, they can offer schools
advice on the implementation of standards on request.

10.2 Introduction to Working with

Educational Standards
In the schools themselves, work with educational standards focuses
on specific subjects and the competencies to be developed there. It
entails clarification of open points and teaching decisions about
the selection, focus and sequencing of material with regard to edu-
cational goals and competency models. It also concerns instructio-
nal concepts and teaching strategies; for example, how to accom-
modate students of different abilities, consolidate understanding,
and drill routines, and develop students ability to apply their
knowledge flexibly. Thus, teachers working with standards must be
able to recognise learning prerequisites and academic progress,
reliably diagnose students strengths and weaknesses, and pre-

103
 scribe appropriate support measures. On one level, these require-
ments apply to the instructional practice of the individual teacher;
on a higher level, they apply to departmental teams and the staff
of the school as a whole. With the present concept of educational
standards, we envisage close coordination of teaching decisions at
the school level. It is particularly important for requirements to be
harmonised across grade levels, but individual schools will have to
agree on more than criteria and points of transition. On the longer
term, it will be important for each school to draw up an internal
curriculum that meets the particular needs of its students, acknow-
ledges the school profile, and builds on previous curricula. Strate-
gies for the internal assessment of teaching and learning outcomes
as well as the organisation of special remedial measures will also
have to be agreed. Finally, interpreting and responding to feed-
back on the schools strengths and weaknesses provided by regular
educational monitoring or more specific internal school evalua-
tions will be a difficult but essential undertaking.
The requirements that will be made of teachers and schools are
very much in line with the key tasks and competencies of the
teaching profession listed in the final report of the KMK teacher
training committee (Terhart 2000). These include the core activity
of teaching, as well as diagnosing and evaluating student perfor-
mance, engaging in continuing professional development, and
participating in school development. However, the expert panel
acknowledges that teachers are not yet sufficiently or systematical-
ly prepared for these tasks in any of the phases of teacher training.
Yet the teacher training institutions will be the support system with
prime responsibility for introducing teachers to work with educa-
tional standards. Where initial teacher training is concerned, the
universities many of which have institutes specialising in subject
didactics and educational psychology have the academic poten-
tial to prepare future teachers for the changed requirements. The
introduction of educational standards will create a specific de-
mand for academic insights (e.g., competency models) and prob-
lem-related skills (e.g., lesson planning, diagnosis, evaluation). Both
the universities and associations of subject specialists can work to
ensure that this demand is met. Indeed, it would seem rational for
the universities with teacher training centres or centres for rese-
arch on learning and instruction temporarily to shift their focus to
work with standards. There will be particular need for additional
training in the effective use of educational standards in the
second phase of teacher training (teaching practice). In the short
term, it will only be possible to upgrade new teachers skills in

104
 close cooperation with the university institutes. In-service training
programmes introducing teacher trainers in the second phase of
the system to work with educational standards must be devised as
a matter of priority. The same holds for concepts on upgrading
the skills of prospective teachers during their teaching practice.
Moreover, special in-service training programmes for head tea-
chers must be put in place at an early stage, as work with educa-
tional standards will make particular demands of them. Overall,
in-service training will have to bear the main responsibility for
upgrading teachers professional qualifications if schools are to be
fully prepared for the new tasks facing them.
The state education institutes can facilitate the introduction of stan-
dards by providing schools and teachers with various forms of
support, including material, recommendations, information
exchanges, clearinghouses and a broad range of advisory services.
Attention should focus on the transition from previous forms of
curriculum development to work with standards. The schools will
need to be provided with frameworks for action that give them
useful guidelines, but leave them a broad scope for individual
manoeuvre on the basis of well-founded teaching decisions. Given
that resources are scarce, it will be crucial to orchestrate the
support of the state education institutes and the teacher training
institutions (including the universities) and to ensure that the
respective services are as well attuned to one another as possible.
However, it must be emphasised that it will not be possible to train
all teachers in the effective use of educational standards through
the traditional methods of in-service training. The conventional
forms of in-service training will be central to the initial dissemina-
tion of basic information about the new standards. However, it will
also be necessary to develop and implement different approaches.
School development procedures and work on specific school pro-
grammes may be valuable points of intervention if they really
focus on subject instruction and departmental cooperation. More-
over, measures for the improvement of instructional quality which
have been shown to increase the efficiency of mathematics and
science instruction in an experimental programme may prove par-
ticularly useful (Prenzel 2000). Selected modules of this program-
me could be customised for work with educational standards, and
implemented independently by schools or departments. Several
modules of the programme could even be adopted directly (e.g.,
those on cumulative learning, consolidating basic knowledge and
insightful learning at various levels, independent learning, asses-
sing and providing feedback on competency gains, internal stan-

105
 dards). Other aspects of this approach could also be adopted; for
instance, schools could cooperate in regional networks with the
support of coordinators, the state education institutes and universi-
ties, and resources could be made available for teachers to exchan-
ge notes with their colleagues in other schools (e.g., managed
servers).
If the state education institutes and teacher training institutions
work in close cooperation and their respective support services are
well orchestrated, as is proposed here, it will of course be impor-
tant to involve the school supervisory authorities. Apart from this,
however, the school supervisory authorities will primarily play an
advisory rather than a regulatory role in the introduction to work
with educational standards (particularly should any difficulties or
conflicts arise).

10.3 Assistance with the Interpretation of

Feedback Reports
Work with the new educational standards will reach a first high
point when schools are informed of their results in the educational
monitoring and evaluation programmes and find out how well
they have succeeded in helping their students to develop the re-
quired competencies. They may also be given additional feedback
on performance profiles, strengths and weaknesses at the school
and in certain cases class level, or on other performance indi-
cators. It is crucial that this information be interpreted carefully,
and that a constructive approach be taken to the feedback,
whether positive or negative. As a matter of principle, schools
should be offered particular support when it emerges that specific
problems need to be addressed. Criticism and recriminations are
not productive and should be avoided. Thus, the support systems
will again be in great demand when it comes to interpreting and
responding to the feedback reports.
Results may indicate that a schools teaching staff lack particular
skills which could be developed in the context of in-service training
programmes. The teacher training institutions will otherwise play a
subordinate role at this stage, however. The main support will have
to come from the state education institutes, in close cooperation
with the school supervisory authorities and the school in question.
The state education institutes can provide advice on standards,
instruction, school development programmes, etc. The school
supervisory authorities may have to consider whether schools need

106
 the support of additional teachers with specific skills and, in con-
cert with the school, draw up a plan to rectify any weaknesses and
promote further school development.
Taken together, the introduction of educational standards will
make great demands of schools, and teachers will not be able to
meet these demands without assistance. Standards can only raise
the quality of educational outcomes in the long term if they are
implemented effectively in the classroom. Yet teachers will first
have to learn to work with the standards in a continuing develop-
mental process that mirrors the development of the educational
standards themselves with their individual components. In other
words, the schools and teachers set to work with the standards will
need external support, and a great deal of it. This support can and
must be provided by the responsible bodies: the school supervisory
authorities, the state education institutes and all three phases of
the teacher training system. Realistically speaking, however, it
must be acknowledged that these support systems are not yet
equipped to provide schools with the necessary backing across the
board. It will thus also be important to ensure that the school sup-
port systems really are capable of assuming the new workload that
the introduction of educational standards will entail. Gearing the
various institutes to provide schools with the necessary support will
present very diverse problems. For example, the situation (and sco-
pe of influence) of the universities is fundamentally different from
that of the school supervisory authorities. Nevertheless, it is impe-
rative that the support systems be systematically prepared and
equipped for these new responsibilities. Without their involve-
ment, it will be very difficult to win teachers acceptance and to
ensure that the necessary skills are developed on a broad basis. The
prime objective of the support systems is thus to introduce schools
and teachers to working with educational standards and to help
ensure that the standards are used effectively.

107
 11. The Necessary Infrastructure for the
Development and Implementation of
Educational Standards
In the previous chapters we described
what educational standards are (Chapter 2, with examples in
Chapter 3 and further details in Chapters 5 to 7), and
which functions they fulfil in the context of pedagogical school
development and the quality development of the education
system as a whole (Chapter 4, with further details in Chapters 8
to 10).

In the final two chapters of the report, we will focus on

how educational standards are developed and put into practice
(implemented). In Chapter 11, we give a systematic summary of
the tasks to be addressed in this context and outline the institu-
tions and procedures that will be necessary. Finally, in Chapter
12, we give an overview of previous and ongoing efforts to deve-
lop educational standards in Germany and propose a schedule
and strategy for the coming years. Wherever appropriate, alter-
natives will be put up for discussion in both chapters.

The introduction of educational standards will make diverse de-

mands of the education system. A first set of tasks to be addressed
will involve defining competency requirements and ensuring that
these requirements are accepted in schools and translated into
teaching content via the curriculum. A second set of tasks will
involve the operationalisation of standards (test development)
and the use of tests for quality development in the education
system. Overall, the six following task areas will have to be
addressed:
(1) developing educational standards: formulating theoretical
concepts, competency models and (minimum) requirements;
(2) establishing binding educational standards: accrediting
educational standards and adopting requirements in accor-
dance with the school legislation;
(3) implementing standards in schools and support systems: translating
the educational standards into teaching content through curri-
culum development (on the central and school levels); this will
have implications for classroom instruction, teacher training,
the school supervisory authorities, etc.;

108
 (4) test development: developing test items and compiling instru-
ments, conducting empirical trials, testing competency models,
defining test scales, preparing assessment instruments for
various purposes;
(5) educational monitoring: determining whether educational stan-
dards are being attained at the system level, e.g., in the context
of international student assessments or in a national report on
the state of education; investigating the contextual factors that
impact on student learning;
(6) school evaluation: providing schools and, if appropriate, indi-
vidual classes and teachers with feedback on how well their
students are meeting educational standards; determining
schools strengths and weaknesses in view of their educational
responsibilities and objectives, self-evaluation and continuing
professional development.

Each of these task areas necessitates specific academic, administra-

tive and teaching expertise, and may also require legal and admi-
nistrative competence. No single institution or committee is capa-
ble of performing or even overseeing the sum total of these tasks;
rather, it will be necessary for a large team of individuals and
establishments to work in close cooperation. Within the German
federal system, it will also be important to determine which tasks
should be tackled or at least coordinated at the national level,
and which should be left to the individual states.
In the following, we examine each of these task areas in turn, and
describe how, and by whom, they can be addressed in Germanys
future education landscape. If appropriate, alternatives will be
given. The approach taken is output as opposed to input-driven
the output-oriented approach recommended in the present report
as the guiding principle for the management of the state edu-
cation system can be transferred by analogy to the development
and implementation of the standards themselves. This means that
educational standards and assessment programmes are likely to be
developed more swiftly and efficiently, and to meet with higher
levels of acceptance, if the process is not ordained from the top
down, but if various actors with the necessary subject expertise
and autonomy draw up products which are put forward for
public discussion, enhanced, and finally released for regular use by
the responsible governmental bodies, but according to centralised
standards. This kind of approach can profit from the strengths of
a federal system i.e., the diversity of approaches and the broad

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 spread of expertise in various locations and institutions while
ensuring the necessary uniformity of the standards themselves.

Task 1: Developing educational standards

Our concept states that specialists in subject didactics will bear
prime responsibility for devising and formulating educational
standards. The content area or subject for which standards are to
be developed will need a firm theoretical foundation, and the fun-
damental concepts of the reference discipline the central orien-
tations of this particular way of viewing the world will have to be
elaborated. The resultant model of relevant competencies, their
dimensions, levels and developmental trajectories, will form the
basis for the definition of educational standards. Ideally, sample
items should be released to illustrate competencies and competen-
cy levels even at this stage. Finally, based on the findings of subject
didactic research and experience, consensus will have to be
reached on which competency requirements can be made manda-
tory. All this can only be achieved given the proper didactic exper-
tise and, in part, subject area knowledge and practical teaching or
general pedagogical skills.
Two models for this kind of activity have recently been developed
within the KMK. To develop standards for primary and lower
secondary education, cross-state working groups composed mainly
of curriculum experts from the state ministries and education
institutes were set up, with didactics experts acting in an advisory
capacity (cf. Chapter 12). By contrast, the task of drawing up core
curricula for grades 11 to 13 of the academic-track Gymnasium was
contracted out to small groups of didactics experts and academics,
who submitted their findings on the defining elements of core cur-
ricula in the form of expert reports (Tenorth 2001).
From the international perspective, it is interesting to note that
many highly influential documents such as the NCTMs Curriculum
and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics and the recommen-
dations of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
were not devised by governmental committees. Rather, they were
drawn up by professional associations and later approved by the
state. In recent years, many countries such as the Netherlands,
Great Britain and Sweden have delegated some of the responsi-
bilities entailed in managing the education system to state-funded
and state-supervised, but legally independent institutions.
In the medium term, the development of national educational
standards in Germany will also have to be institutionalised in some

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 form. Ad hoc committees will not be able to assume permanent
responsibility for coordinating the necessary development work
and revisions, laying a theoretical foundation, and integrating
academic and especially didactic expertise. This does not imply
that new bureaucratic structures should be generated specifically
for this purpose, however. A more rational alternative would be to
establish a legally independent institute with the necessary aca-
demic expertise that is responsible for coordinating the develop-
ment of educational standards, but that generally delegates the
operational side to third parties. Panels of experts could then be
commissioned to develop educational concepts and competency
models for specific content areas and subjects, as was the case with
the core curricula devised for the upper grades of the Gymnasium.
Ideally, this fundamental work should be organised across edu-
cational levels and school types. Work on standards for science, for
example, would be facilitated by a competency model that de-
scribes the development of scientific thought processes and the
respective learning activities across the entire educational career
(see Appendix b). Working groups including practitioners could
then draw up competency requirements for given grades on the
basis of this model. Following the example of standards such as
those developed by the NCTM, a reasonable goal would be to de-
fine competency requirements for every second or third grade.
This would provide guidelines for the transitional points of the
educational career (e.g., the end of primary schooling) and for the
final grades of secondary school, as well as for certain intermediate
grades. A similar approach could be taken to the domain of
languages as a whole, or at least to that of foreign languages, on
the basis of the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages (see Appendix a).

Task 2: Establishing binding educational standards

According to Article 7, paragraph 1 of Germanys constitution, the
Basic Law, the entire German school system is under the super-
vision of the state. Establishing and monitoring the application of
educational standards is an essential part of this commitment. The
division of authority between the federation and the individual
states (Articles 30 and 70 ff. of the Basic Law) means that, within
the domain of school education, the state actually signifies the
respective federal state. Owing to its greater expertise and flexibility
in this respect, and as with the issuing of curricula, the executive is
responsible for educational standards, which could be given the
legal form of administrative or statutory regulations. It is also

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 responsible for determining whether standards are being main-
tained in schools.
It is thus the responsibility of the respective state ministry to esta-
blish educational standards as mandatory performance targets for
schools. A method that has proved effective in the context of the
uniform examination requirements developed for the Abitur, for
example, is for the responsible KMK committee on the basis of
drafts submitted by panels of experts and, in some cases, a national
agency to agree on joint documents which are then made legally
binding through the concerted action of the ministries.
A law would only have to be enacted if the establishment and
monitoring of national educational standards were the mandate of
the national government. However, the authors of this report re-
gard standards as no more and no less than instruments that are
approved by the ministers of education to provide the state school
system with much needed guidelines and feedback. Educational
standards should certainly not serve the function of determining
individual educational careers or indeed of substantiating grades
and qualifications.

Task 3: Implementing standards in schools and support systems

The introduction of educational standards will have implications
for curriculum development (see Chapter 8), teacher training
(especially in-service training), and for the school supervisory
authorities and other support systems (see Chapter 10). Although
no new institutions will have to be set up, the work of the existing
establishments, particularly the state education institutes, will
change.
One of the guiding principles of the present report is to boost
schools autonomy in their pedagogical work. Educational stan-
dards define attainment targets in clear and comprehensible
terms; they can and for precisely this reason should leave
schools plenty of leeway to work out their own ways of attaining
these standards. Taking this line of reasoning to its logical con-
clusion, this means that the ins and outs of the curriculum, the
details of content and teaching methods, and the fine points of
scheduling should be determined at the chalk face, in a school
curriculum. However, it is important not to underestimate the
additional skills and resources that this transfer of curricular
responsibilities will necessitate in schools. The role of the state edu-
cation institutes, which are currently responsible for drawing up
central curricula and framework guidelines, would thus shift more

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 to advising schools on matters of curriculum development. A fun-
damental strategy shift of this kind can only be effected gradually.
For this reason, and as outlined in Chapter 8, we propose that cur-
ricula be initially retained at the state level, but that they be given
a stronger focus, related to competency models, and thus take on
the same sort of shape as core curricula.
The role of the German school supervisory authorities, which
currently assume both supervisory and advisory functions, will also
change. Several European countries have recently switched to set-
ting up two separate institutions one to actually assess the
schools (inspection) and one to support their pedagogical develop-
ment and help them address problems (consultancy) with the
aim of achieving the best possible results in both of these domains.
Proposals to restructure the school supervisory authorities in some
of the German states point in a similar direction.

Task 4: Operationalisation of competency models and test

development
Model items illustrating the various competency dimensions and
levels should ideally be submitted along with the standards (see
Task 1). It is essential, however, that a systematic approach be
taken to the key task of constructing a pool of items that reflects
the content and cognitive demands of the different competency
levels and embeds them in a variety of contexts. Most traditional
assessments have been compiled by collecting and testing large
numbers of items essentially at random. As a rule, though, these
tests are only suited to the purposes of norm-referenced assess-
ment, and not to the criterion-referenced assessment recommen-
ded in the present report (with performance being judged against
pre-determined levels of mastery). A targeted approach to item
design and development must be taken if meaningful tests that
really do operationalise the competency model of educational
standards are to be constructed. Collecting items administered in
the individual states in comparative studies may be a good starting
point here, but it is no substitute for the targeted development of
items corresponding to the competency models defined. Indeed,
the operationalisation of national educational standards must be
viewed as a responsibility for the nation as a whole.
Once items have been drafted, they are tested informally in selec-
ted classrooms with respect to their comprehensibility and the
clarity of directions and scoring manuals, etc. They then undergo
systematic piloting to confirm the quality of measurement. The

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 items do not have to be piloted on representative groups of stu-
dents, but the sample does have to cover different school types and
performance levels, and each item should be tested on several
hundred students. Pilot studies mean that (a) competency models
can be empirically tested and modified as necessary, (b) compe-
tency levels can be illustrated with sample items that have not
merely been drawn up on paper, but that have also been validated
in the field, and (c) an assessment instrument is produced that can
subsequently be used for educational monitoring, evaluation, etc.
Clearly, academic expertise is essential for both the construction
and the empirical testing of test items. Indeed, other countries
began setting up institutions specialising in these areas years ago.
The institutions may be located in the private sector (Educational
Testing Service, USA; Cito, the Netherlands), be state-funded insti-
tutions (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, England), depart-
ments of the national education authorities (Sweden, Finland) or
based directly in the ministry of education (France). There is no
comparable institution in Germany; even the state education insti-
tutes are not yet adequately equipped to cope with these tasks. In
recent years, however, numerous universities and non-university
research institutes active in the field of international comparative
studies and state-wide studies have acquired the relevant know-
how, and growing numbers of didactics experts have begun to
address questions of task design and test development. In some
cases, the technical aspects (sampling, preparing assessment
documents, training staff, data management and coding respon-
ses) have been performed by these working groups; in other cases,
they have been delegated to specialised service providers such as
the Hamburg Data Processing Center (DPC), the data processing
department of the International Association for the Evaluation of
Educational Achievement (IEA), which has become increasingly
involved in national projects in addition to its international activi-
ties. This broad range of institutions capable of contributing to test
development should be maintained and, if possible, expanded in
the future.
Accordingly, the authoring panel recommends establishing an
institution to coordinate the operationalisation of educational stan-
dards at the national level. Working groups of educational resear-
chers and didactics specialists with the necessary methodological
and content expertise can be commissioned to perform specific
tasks, while the institute ensures that quality standards are main-
tained and that the various projects are embedded in a common
theoretical framework, and manages the deployment of tests as far

114
 as necessary. The work of this test agency will rely on academic
expertise; in other words, it must be affiliated with a university. Its
supervisory bodies must include representatives of both the scien-
tific community and the education authorities.

Task 5: Educational monitoring

Information on the competency levels attained by students in the
various federal states helps education policymakers to identify the
areas that need to be addressed. Regular representative surveys
with standards-based tests are a mainstay of this kind of output-
driven management.
Since 2000, Germany has been participating in the OECDs PISA
study into the outcomes of lower secondary education. The perfor-
mance of 15-year-olds or ninth graders is assessed at three-year
intervals, with each cycle focusing on a major domain. In the
2000 and 2003 assessments, the German sample was enlarged to
allow results to be compared on a state-by-state basis. The OECD
plans to extend the international assessment design on beyond
2009. Educational monitoring in Germany would be far more infor-
mative if future national, standards-based tests were administered
parallel to these PISA assessments in a coordinated study design.
For example, it would afford the German debate on the relations-
hip between curricular standards and concepts of literacy a sound
empirical basis. At the same time, the sophisticated explanatory
models elaborated in the PISA study could be extended to incorpo-
rate the new competency domains. However, this kind of tie-up
with the PISA assessments will only be feasible if standards are de-
fined for the ninth grade of German schools.
A fully developed educational monitoring programme would
entail assessments in three or four grades (e.g., grades 3, [6], 9 and
12). Representative assessments with new student samples every
three to four years would provide ample information on the output
of the education system. In countries such as Canada and the USA,
national assessments are conducted on an annual basis, with diffe-
rent learning areas (subjects) being investigated in a fixed pattern.
The authors of this report consider such frequent large-scale assess-
ments or indeed annual investigations of all the schools in a given
region, also standard practice in some states of the USA, to be
unnecessary and ultimately counterproductive, because too much
importance is attached to testing.
Educational monitoring programmes must do more than simply
describe the distribution of competencies throughout a student

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 population. They must also identify the corresponding resources
and processes (e.g., educational trajectories) and cast light on the
contextual factors that promote learning in the school setting. This
requires particular expertise in the field of empirical educational
research. Owing to the countrys participation in international
student achievement studies, Germanys school researchers are
once more able to keep abreast of international developments. The
institutes with the relevant experience should continue to be ent-
rusted with running monitoring studies. However, the continua-
tion and expansion of the PISA study to include additional subjects
and grade levels will make it necessary simply for reasons of
efficiency for an academic competence centre to be set up to
coordinate these studies, to harmonise their conception and analy-
sis (e.g., by incorporating longitudinal components to observe stu-
dents across several points of measurement) and to ensure that
quality standards are maintained.

Task 6: School evaluation

School evaluation is now established in one form or another in
Germany, though in a more qualitative than quantitative sense.
Several states have instructed their schools to draw up school de-
velopment programmes, and to take regular stock of what has
been achieved in relation to these programmes. Evaluation has
also become an integral part of experimental projects and pro-
grammes. School evaluation services are available on the market,
as are instructions and materials for school self-evaluation.
National educational standards will not impose any new structures
or responsibilities upon these practices, but they will entail new
criteria. As described in Chapter 7, however, the task of deter-
mining whether standards have actually been attained would over-
stretch individual schools. Rather, schools must be given access to
professionally designed, standards-based tests. This could be done
in various ways. One possibility would be for the state education
institutes to be given custody of standards-based tests adminis-
tered in educational monitoring programmes, and to re-use these
tests in school evaluation programmes. A second possibility would
be for tests to be released after their deployment in educational
monitoring, and used to develop material that schools can ad-
minister independently, and on their own initiative. This was the
approach taken in Brandenburg, for example, with items from the
state-wide mathematics test, QUASUM. Nevertheless, there are
methodological and practical limits to this kind of self-assess-
ment. It is practically impossible, for example, to compute ad-

116
 justed results that take important aspects of the students back-
grounds into account (see Chapter 9). In principle, it would also be
possible for assessment instruments for use in the context of school
evaluation, including self-evaluation, to be commercially developed
and put on the market.
As yet, quantified performance assessments have played practically
no role in the context of school evaluation in Germany partly due
to the lack of suitable instruments. The collection and handling of
this kind of data therefore needs to be planned with great care.
Criterion-referenced information is of more value than norm-re-
ferenced ranking tables, and the limits of this form of assessment
have to be taken into account. It would be disastrous if educational
standards were discredited by substandard evaluation procedures.
The states need to design school evaluation programmes and
corresponding assessment packages that observe professional
quality standards and guarantee a proper approach to standards
and testing. Another of the tasks of a national test agency could
be to certify the tests and evaluation procedures that are based on
educational standards by subjecting them to the necessary quality
control outlined in this report.

Conclusions
The federal states will continue to bear responsibility for estab-
lishing binding educational standards, implementing them in
schools and support systems, and evaluating individual schools
(task areas 2, 3, 6), though they may well adopt different strategies
to achieve these ends. The state education institutes will play a key
role here. The states can exchange notes within the framework of
the KMK and use the instruments of the BLK the joint central and
state government commission for educational planning and re-
search promotion to learn from mutual experience, conduct
harmonised experimental programmes, and hence make better
use of resources.
However, structures for developing and revising standards, devising
test items on the basis of these standards, and running a national
educational monitoring programme (task areas 1, 4 and 5) will be
required at the national level. The authoring panel recommends
outsourcing most of these tasks to scientific institutes, universities
or academic consortia on a fixed-term basis. This would guarantee
flexibility and federal diversity and promote the development of
empirical educational research, as is deemed necessary by bodies
such as the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsge-

117
 meinschaft). On the long run, however, the educational authorities
will not be able to cope with the conceptual planning, coordina-
tion, integration and quality control of these outsourced assign-
ments in addition to their other responsibilities. Rather, a per-
manent coordinating body is needed, with a scientific and re-
search background and a university affiliation. The fact that edu-
cation policymakers are currently drawing up plans for a national
agency of this kind can thus be welcomed. Since this agency would
operate in the field of research and educational planning, it could
be jointly established and funded by the federation and the states
in accordance with Article 91b of the Basic Law. It is also worth
considering whether the three tasks outlined above should be
placed in the remit of a single institution or distributed among
various bodies. On the one hand, the development of standards
and assessment methods requires expertise in the areas of subject
didactics and test methodology, whereas educational monitoring
calls for skills in the domains of empirical educational research and
statistics. It would thus seem logical to allocate these tasks to
separate institutions. Seen in terms of efficiency gains, on the other
hand, it may be advisable for all of these functions to be assumed
by a single body.
Educational reform will not succeed unless research is given quali-
fied support and the new generation of academics and scientists
are equipped with the necessary skills to take on the tasks de-
scribed above. Research on subject didactics and empirical, inter-
disciplinary educational research are in particular need of expan-
sion.
All this will not be available free of charge. However, it is impor-
tant to bear in mind that introducing national educational stan-
dards will significantly reduce the costs of curriculum development
in the individual states. For example, it will no longer be necessary
for all 16 states, each with some four school types, to define the
basic concepts of a subject and develop the respective competency
models in parallel. Furthermore, by setting up new institutes and
outsourcing certain tasks, costs that have previously been buried in
the administrative expenses of the educational authorities will be
made more transparent. Finally, it is reasonable to assume that
developing educational standards for the education system as a
whole will be more efficient than the previous forms of curriculum
development (see, e.g., Vollstdt & Tillmann 1998, Biel, Ohlhaver &
Riquarts 1999).

118
 12. The Development of Educational
Standards in Germany: Current Status and
Future Perspectives
The members of the Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK), the council of
Germanys ministers of education and cultural affairs, set them-
selves an ambitious goal in June 2002 in resolving to introduce
educational standards. They plan to present initial results of their
work to the public in autumn 2003, and to produce the following
documents by spring 2004:
standards for primary school (end of the fourth grade) in
German and mathematics,
standards for the Hauptschule 4 leaving examination in German,
mathematics and a foreign language,
newly drafted standards for the intermediate leaving examina-
tion (obtained on completion of the Realschule 5 and comparable
courses of education) in German, mathematics and a foreign
language, as well as
revised uniform examination requirements (Einheitliche Prfungs-
anforderungen or EPA) for various Gymnasium 6 subjects at Abitur
level.
The standards are to establish binding guidelines for all of Ger-
manys states, defining the learning outcomes expected at the end
of a specific grade (here: at the end of the fourth, ninth and tenth
grades). They are also to form the basis for surveys or comparative
studies monitoring adherence to standards at the state level.In
drafting these documents, the KMK has been able to draw on a
number of preparatory projects carried out in recent years by in-
dividual states or groups of states. In the following, we give an
overview of these developments, discuss similarities and differences
between these recommendations and those made in this report,
and sketch out the steps that will be necessary to further elaborate
educational standards in the years to come.
4
Type of school providing basic general education at lower secondary
level, usually comprising grades 59.
5
Type of school at lower secondary level, usually comprising grades 510.
Provides pubils with a more extensive general education and the opportu-
nity to go on to courses at upper secondary level that lead to vocational
or higher education qualifications.
6
Type of school covering both lower and upper secondary level (usually
grades 513) and providing an in-depth general education aimed at the
general higher education entrance qualification, Abitur.

119
 12.1 Preparatory Projects at the State Level
Many of the German states curricula still define educational or
learning goals by listing in detail the material to be taught in
classes on a particular subject in a particular grade. Relatively
seldom do they incorporate this into a larger instructional frame-
work, except by making a few interdisciplinary connections.
In particular, they seldom describe objectives for a given subject
throughout the various grades and school levels in terms of uni-
fied, all-embracing goals, and they usually fail to align their ob-
jectives with theories of learning or didactic principles. A curri-
culum defined in this way creates a framework that can essentially
be implemented only when accompanied by a specifically tailored
teaching manual.
Several states have very recently developed new curricula or frame-
work guidelines incorporating pedagogical and didactic concepts
that have been a subject of increasing public discussion since the
publication of the TIMSS and PISA results. These new curricula
focus on central objectives for each subject and define compulsory
core areas while, at the same time, leaving the individual school
room for manoeuvre. In their introductory passages or conceptual
structure, the curricula often make reference to competencies and
to the big ideas of specific subjects, which are also recommended
in this report as the basis for educational standards. For example,
mathematics curricula at least in their introductions frequently
make reference to teaching principles such as those identified in
the American NCTMs Principles and Standards for School Mathe-
matics. These should not, however, be confused with competencies
or competency models as described in TIMSS and PISA (although
the authors of these new curricula sometimes use this termino-
logy; see also Section 6.2; for discussion, see Section 12.2).
Some states have even embarked on a path away from traditional
curricula and framework guidelines, and are moving towards ex-
plicit educational standards. Virtually without exception, they
understand this concept to mean that their task is not only to for-
mulate goals, define subject matter and draw on the guiding con-
cepts of the curricula, but also to establish performance expec-
tations for students at specific points in their school career. In so
doing, these states have taken different paths:
The first path, taken by a few states in preparation for standards,
has been for curriculum experts to attempt to derive perfor-
mance expectations for specific grades or school-leaving certi-
ficates from the existing curricula.

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 The second path has been to rewrite framework curricula to con-
tain definitions of concrete performance expectations, thus
making standards an immediate part of the curriculum. The new
plans for lower secondary education in Brandenburg, for ex-
ample, contain qualification expectations, which are used as
indicators of successful learning and at the same time as
quality standards for teaching, and are elaborated on three
levels (basic, extended and advanced general education).
The third path has consisted in developing educational standards
alongside of existing curricula. Even before the KMKs resolution
of June 2002, Baden-Wrttemberg, for example, agreed on the
following working definition: Educational standards define in
concrete and binding terms the knowledge and competencies
that students must possess at a given point in time. [...] Educatio-
nal standards contain the guiding concepts for a particular sub-
ject or group of subjects, they define goals and subject matter,
and provide sample items for the evaluation of student perfor-
mance and teaching quality. They set compulsory objectives for
the abilities and skills to be acquired in specific subjects as well
as for the overarching competencies required across the indi-
vidual disciplines that is, methodological, social and personal
competencies.
Common proposals for standards in primary and secondary level
schooling have also been put forward for further development in
the states where the CDU is the majority party.
The fourth path has been to move directly from a curriculum to
the development of assessment procedures. For example, the
state of Rhineland-Palatinate has initiated the VERA project,
which aims to develop a pool of tasks for school evaluation at the
end of primary schooling (Helmke & Hosenfeld 2003). A number
of other states have now also joined the project. It does not set
out by defining subject matter or competency-related standards,
but drafts tasks under the participation of a large team of expe-
rienced teachers. Then, using psychometric methods, it creates
assessments which are to be standardised for state-wide use. A
similar procedure was used in Bavaria, where unified orientation
assessments aligned with the new curricula are already conduc-
ted in grades two and three.
Thus, performance standards are being established here without
first developing content standards that go beyond the curricula.
This pragmatic approach probably enables quick implemen-
tation of systematic school evaluation and educational monito-

121
 ring programmes. However, it may offer teachers less in terms of
orientation since it lacks competency models, focused descrip-
tions of the core curriculum, and qualitative performance ex-
pectations all of which are key components of educational stan-
dards according to the concept described here. However, both
Rhineland-Palatinate and Bavaria plan to peg these tests and
item pools to the standards developed nationwide and to the
results of the PIRLS/IGLU international study of primary schools,
as soon as these are available.
Many of the documents produced at the state level still bear a
strong resemblance to traditional curricula. Following general and
subject-specific preambles, they list goals and subject matter accor-
ding to school type and course of education, frequently describing
them in the style of classical taxonomic classifications of learning
goals. What is new in these proposals is, above all, that they de-
scribe a compulsory core, supplemented by sample items, orien-
tation assessments, etc., which give their requirements concrete
form and establish the long-term basis for the evaluation of schools
and teaching.

12.2 The Understanding of Competencies as a

Crucial Challenge
Upon closer examination of the new curricula, guidelines, and
initial drafts of standards, what stands out above all is that in
contrast to this reports recommendations there is a great deal of
uncertainty and variety in the use of the term competence and
of competency models.
Baden-Wrttembergs definition of standards quoted above
suggests that the term competencies tends to be used for what
are otherwise known as key skills, while the terms used in the
context of an individual subject are knowledge, skills and abilities.
This is especially true of the new framework plans in Mecklenburg-
West Pomerania and the framework curricula in Brandenburg,
which take their bearings from a concept borrowed from voca-
tional education: Handlungskompetenz or the ability to perform.
They list how each subject contributes to the development of tech-
nical competence, methodological competence, social competence
and personal competence, thus identifying competencies as key
skills, which it understands as general, overarching educational
goals to which each subject should contribute.
The panel authoring this report, however, takes an idea from
educational psychology as its starting point: that competencies, as

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 learned, demand-specific performance dispositions, can only be
developed through continual enhancement of knowledge and
skills in specific areas of subject matter and experience, which in
todays school system are represented above all by the individual
subjects. It follows that the task of competency models is to de-
scribe goals, structures and outcomes of the learning processes for
each subject. They represent the components and levels of compe-
tency development in students and thus offer a point of orientation
for instruction and learning in schools. According to this under-
standing, competencies connect different educational contents,
and are simultaneously operations or activities performed on or
with these contents. Translated into tests and test items, such com-
petency models make it possible to describe the performance level
of students in a criterion-referenced manner: not through compari-
son with the performance levels of others, but with reference to
specifically defined criteria. This kind of criterion-referenced des-
cription of competence thus identifies concrete requirements that
should be mastered by students at a specific level of competence,
and also describes activities and subject matter that have not yet
been mastered or attained.
Only through these competency models do educational standards
acquire the power to provide a point of orientation for teaching
they demonstrate the developmental levels and stages of subject-
specific competencies in clear, immediately comprehensible terms.
Such competency models also challenge educators to identify sub-
tle changes in students over the course of learning. They record the
knowledge and skills already attained by lower achievers as well,
thus giving an idea of how and where to best foster their develop-
ment. This creates a counterweight to the regrettably common way
of thinking in terms of deficit models and social comparisons. In
the context of tests or surveys comparing student achievement,
competency models provide schools with important criterion-re-
ferenced feedback about the level of mastery achieved by their
students as well as the attainment targets (as performance indica-
tors of specific competency levels) that they have not yet been able
to reach.
Another report prepared by a panel of leading educational scien-
tists and psychologists in the USA for the National Research Coun-
cil presents arguments aimed in a similar direction (NRC 2001).
Under the title Knowing What Students Know The Science and
Design of Educational Assessment, the authors criticise the stan-
dards and performance assessments that until now have enjoyed
broad acceptance in the USA on the grounds that they merely

123
 identify learning goals and testing benchmarks, but are unable to
give an accurate idea of how competence develops. (Note that this
critique applies, not to new standards that are firmly grounded in
subject didactic insights such as the NCTM standards described in
Chapter 3, but to the traditional listing of learning goals and the
performance standa rds that remain the norm in the USA.)
While the existing standards emphasise what students should
learn, they do not describe how students learn in ways that are
maximally useful for guiding instruction and assessment (NRC
2001, p. 241).
A model of cognition and learning should serve as the corner-
stone of the assessment design process. This model should be based
on the best available understanding of how students represent
knowledge and develop competence in the domain. The model of
learning can serve as a unifying element a nucleus that brings
cohesion to curriculum, instruction, and assessment (loc.cit., p. 2).
This model may be fine-grained and very elaborate or more coar-
sely grained, depending on the purpose of the assessment, but it
should always be based on empirical studies of learners in a
domain. Ideally, the model will also provide a developmental per-
spective, showing typical ways in which learners progress toward
competence (loc.cit., p. 5).

One of the central challenges facing future work on educational

standards is the need to develop a shared concept of competencies
and their levels and logic of development, and to clarify the rela-
tionship between subject-specific and extracurricular knowledge.
As stated in Chapter 6, this is a highly demanding task. Neverthe-
less, great strides have already been made, not least as a result of
the PISA study. Models for components and levels of competence
have already been drawn up for the areas of mathematics (see
Chapter 3 and Section 6.2), reading literacy (Artelt et al. 2001),
natural sciences (Prenzel et al. 2001; see also Appendix b) and
foreign languages (see Appendix a). The authors of the American
study mentioned above foresee that developing meaningful compe-
tency models will require a great deal of interdisciplinary work
integrating theory and practice.

12.3 Current Projects of the KMK

Since autumn 2002, the KMK has commissioned a number of
cross-state working groups with drawing up the planned national
educational standards and the new Abitur examination require-

124
 ments. The majority of these groups members are experts
employed in the state institutes for teacher education and curri-
culum development who possess extensive experience in deve-
loping school curricula. Furthermore, the groups members in-
clude both educators and didactics experts. Guidelines for the wor-
king groups have been established by a steering committee headed
by the chairperson of the KMK school committee. This steering
committee is advised by educational scientists and didactics ex-
perts, among them several members of the expert panel authoring
this report.
The process now underway in the KMK corresponds in many
respects to the recommendations put forward here. The KMKs
work is guided by modern concepts of subject didactics in defining
basic learning principles and the models to which the individual
subjects should aspire. For the most part, it draws on established
competency models with a basis in didactic methodology; for exam-
ple, the concept of mathematics literacy from TIMSS and PISA (see
Section 6.2) or the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages (see Appendix a). These competencies are described for
all of the different courses of education in lower secondary schoo-
ling according to the same basic dimensions and principles.
It is clear to all those concerned that the documents to be produ-
ced by the KMK by spring 2004 will not yet satisfy all the demands
that can ultimately be made of educational standards. At this sta-
ge, such high expectations would be not only unrealistic but also
counterproductive. The KMK will develop these standards on an
ongoing basis. This panel recommends that in doing so, it consider
the following three questions that are discussed briefly below:
To what ends and for which grades are the standards being
formulated?
Are they minimum standards or norm standards; that is, do they
define the lowest or the mean performance level expected of
students?
Are components and levels of competencies specified?
In developing educational standards, the KMK does, of course, utili-
se existing agreements on the objectives of particular courses of
school education. As the body responsible for ensuring national
comparability of school-leaving requirements and certificates, the
KMK has released uniform examination requirements for the
Abitur (EPA) as well as agreements on the intermediate school-lea-
ving certificate. Thus, as a first step towards educational standards,
it is defining standards for the final grades of the respective school

125
 types. The drafts put forward by the states take different paths in
choosing the grades for which standards are to be devised. Perhaps
in the medium term, consensus will be reached on comparative
criteria for the final grade of school as well as for preceding
grades. In any case, the authoring panel recommends that inter-
mediate standards be adopted, for example, for the third grade of
primary school and for the ninth grade for students aspiring to the
intermediate school-leaving certificate. It strongly advises against
conducting state-level comparative studies or national educational
monitoring in the final years of secondary school. Rather, by ob-
taining feedback at the midpoint of a course of education, schools
would be better able to respond to findings. Furthermore, this
would make it less easy to confuse the results of evaluation and
monitoring with exit examinations or to misuse them as such. In
addition, a standards-based assessment implemented in the ninth
grade would be compatible with the PISA programme. Since the
PISA literacy concept and the PISA tests have been largely accepted
in Germany as a yardstick for educational quality, it seems sensible
to align national standards with PISA and to investigate them in
the same groups of students (i.e., in the ninth grade).
Furthermore, the KMK has decided to define educational standards
initially as norm standards and not, as recommended here in
Chapter 2, as minimum requirements. There are, in fact, a num-
ber of arguments that speak in favour of this decision. It would be
very difficult to establish clear minimum standards in the initial
proposals that would challenge the education system, but still
remain realistic. Aiming for a moderate, normal level of expec-
tation leaves open a range of options in practical implementation
that can be tested in schools and thoroughly examined throughout
the process of test development. This would help to ensure that the
process of implementing standards does not cause students to be
massively over- or underchallenged. Here it would be well to recall
that curriculum experts who were asked how they expected Ger-
man students to perform on PISA test items overestimated student
performance, in part significantly: as the horizon of curriculum
expectation, they selected test items, for example in mathematics,
that were solved correctly by less than 50 % of the participants
(Klieme, Neubrand & Ldtke 2001).
The concentration on a moderate level of expectation in this first
version of educational standards also means that it is not yet
necessary to specify competency models with finely differentiated
levels. In the medium term, however, the task of developing com-
petency models with different dimensions and levels should not

126
 be neglected (see Section 12.2). It is to be hoped that later versions
of national educational standards will systematically incorporate
competency models and levels, and that they will ultimately suc-
ceed in defining minimum requirements applying to all educatio-
nal tracks.

12.4 Continuation of the Projects as of Spring 2004

The development of uniform national standards and performance
criteria is a major turning point for Germanys federal system: the
Federal Republic of Germany has no relevant experience in this
area to date, at least beyond the state level. Thus, the necessary
expertise in the educational administration and the resources for
academic supervision and consulting still have to be built up. The
teachers, parents and students affected will have to come to terms
with standards, comparative assessments and similar concepts, and
the public at large should be given the chance to provide critique
and to participate actively in the process of change. For these
reasons, the KMK sees the initial educational standards as the
beginning of a process in which both the concept and the products
can evolve further.
Once the first version of educational standards has been presented
in autumn 2003 or spring 2004, the key players in the education
system will take on various tasks, for which another two years
should be allotted:

1. Reception and critical examination of the standards in the schools

and institutions of the education system
Whether or not educational standards actually succeed in impro-
ving the quality of the education system will be decided in the
schools. Therefore it is crucial to win the support of teachers and
head teachers. The aims and objectives, and to a degree the neces-
sity, of introducing educational standards into the German school
system must thus be communicated in understandable terms.
The initiators of this educational reform will have to campaign for
the idea in schools in order to convince others that educational
standards do not constitute a needless superstructure, but rather
offer schools greater freedom for their pedagogical work (see
Chapter 4). Fears of standards imposing limitations and external
controls will have to be accommodated. In this process, it will be
important to foster public debate on the form, content and use of
standards and to encourage suggestions for their improvement.
The insights gleaned should be taken into account in revising the
first drafts.

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 To ensure that schools accept educational standards, it is crucial that
they have a general idea of how to address and implement them.
Ministries, state education institutes and other key players will have
to be able to put forward relatively concrete procedural plans descri-
bing the future requirements and the practical steps schools can
take to fulfil them. It is also important that the entire development
of educational standards be envisioned as a dynamic undertaking
with strong forward momentum. The main objective should initially
be to explore options and potential paths of action that make sense
for the schools at the current stage in the development process.
The procedural plans will, first of all, suggest ways for schools to
familiarise themselves with the standards. The schools will then be
able to examine how they conduct lessons and whether internal
agreements on curricula correspond to the focal points of the stan-
dards. If need be, a panel of teachers could then draft a school
curriculum, taking the standards as a guideline and focusing on
cumulative learning over the course of several grades.
School development consultants and the school supervisory
authorities will have to be prepared to advise schools on receiving,
implementing and monitoring standards.
In initial teacher training and in-service training, discussions
should examine the standards themselves, the conception of the
subject underlying them, competency models, and performance
expectations.
Last but not least, work on curriculum development at the state
level should be adapted to the national standards. This means, as
described in Chapter 8, that state bodies should slowly pull back
from managing input, and gradually hand over joint responsibility
to the schools. It should be kept in mind that in the first few years
following the introduction of standards, the new curricula and fra-
mework guidelines will only be able to take rudimentary form.

2. Public discussion
Parents and the public can engage in critical discussion of edu-
cational standards, involving questions such as:
Do the objectives and focal points defined in the standards meet
societys demands on its education system?
Do the standards explain in understandable terms the compe-
tencies that are to be imparted? Are the performance expecta-
tions clear enough, legitimated by educational goals, and more
or less realistic?
Do my childs classes fit these standards?

128
 By discussing these and similar questions, parents and the public
will be able to make proposals for implementing and revising edu-
cational standards.

3. Elaborating competency models on the basis of subject

didactic insights
Building a firm foundation for educational standards and es-
pecially competency models on the basis of subject didactic
insights is as previously mentioned in Section 12.2 a desidera-
tum for further work. Experts could be commissioned to present
reports outlining the basics for the various school levels and cour-
ses of education. It will also be increasingly important to work
together with professional associations of specialist teachers, to pay
attention to findings produced in relevant studies from other coun-
tries, and to intensify empirical research, e.g., by developing stan-
dards-based assessments.

4. Translating standards into test items and

assessment procedures
As mentioned above, the KMK sees a direct link from educational
standards to the work of compiling test item pools, and to surveys
or comparative studies conducted at the state level. However, be-
fore such studies can be carried out, making it possible to determi-
ne how well schools are doing in meeting the standards, assess-
ments will have to be developed and tested empirically according
to the professional conventions of educational diagnostics (see
Chapter 7, above). In Chapters 7 and 11 it was recommended that a
scientific institution be established for this purpose. It would act on
behalf of the KMK and, in some cases, of the federal government as
well, and would hold responsibility for planning, commissioning,
and coordinating the necessary work and ensuring quality control
and dialogue. This agency, which would be relatively small,
could begin to take form in 2003 and could start developing its
first tests as of spring 2004. One of the first issues it would have to
deal with is the question of which specific grades the tests should
be developed for (see discussion in 12.3).
Research institutes, university research groups, the state education
institutes, but possibly also commercial enterprises, would be gran-
ted contracts to work with practitioners in compiling test items; to
evaluate them empirically in consultation with government agen-
cies; and based on these findings, to further develop sound compe-
tency models. A minimum of two years should be scheduled for

129
 this research process. For some subjects, it would be possible to use
sample test items and competency models from previous state pro-
jects. By 2004, for example, the VERA project in Rhineland-Pala-
tinate (Helmke & Hosenfeld 2003) and the orientation assessments
of Bavarian primary schools will already have completed prelimi-
nary trial and standardization cycles. The item pools produced by
these studies, but also the competency models (levels and dimen-
sions) used and tested in them, could make the work that currently
stands to be done at the national level considerably easier.
Where mathematics items for the lower secondary sector are con-
cerned, it is possible to draw not only on TIMSS and PISA, but also
on student assessments and comparative studies that have been
run in almost all of the states. An evaluation of test items from
three states in the framework of PISA 2000 showed that they form
a common scale of mathematics competence. PISA 2003, with its
emphasis on mathematics, will offer additional material for test
items and differentiated competency models. In this subject, it
should be relatively easy to connect existing item pools to national
educational standards. A sound basis for developing test items also
exists in the natural sciences and languages, the latter based on
the Hamburg LAU study (Lehmann, Peek & Gnsfu 1997) and the
KMK study on English and German skills planned for 2003/04 (DESI
Consortium 2001; Beck & Klieme 2003). These new pools of test
items designed to comply with standards will first have to be tested
empirically. In lower secondary education it seems sensible to syn-
chronise these field trials with the PISA surveys that will probably
continue to be conducted every three years after 2003, and include
the group of 15-year-olds as well as ninth graders. The structure of
the PISA studies, with their extensive field trials under realistic
assessment conditions followed later by actual implementation, is
extremely useful in developing and validating such tests. This con-
nection saves investigative effort and at the same time makes it
possible to evaluate and process findings in a highly differentiated
manner, since PISA offers comparability with international tests as
well as a wealth of background data on the social, classroom, and
school context. PISA 2006 and its field trial in 2005 will be the first
opportunity for this kind of test development work.

5. Revising and adopting educational standards

All findings should be integrated into a revised version of the edu-
cational standards that would be released around 2006. As soon as
these standards have been approved, they can be adopted in the
individual states. This revision should, in the view of the authoring

130
 group, also incorporate minimum requirements that apply to all
educational tracks.

12.5 Longer-term Perspectives

For these reasons, it will only be possible to think about using
national educational standards for evaluations in individuals
schools and for educational monitoring (see Chapter 9) and thus
for output-driven management of the education system as of
2006/07, and then only in selected primary and lower secondary
school subjects. The development and implementation of edu-
cational standards in other subjects and in upper secondary edu-
cation (and possibly also in vocational education) is a longer-term
project that will reach far beyond 2006/07.
This time horizon may seem surprising. However, the authoring
panel would advise educational policymakers not to arbitrarily
move these target dates forward. Similarly, we would advise the
general public not to place unrealistic pressure on educational
policy and administration for quick results in light of the following:
The presentation and broad discussion of the first educational
standards is already having a significant impact on educational
policy.
The significance of educational standards is not rooted solely in
testing. As a frame of reference for professional work in schools,
as a guideline for school and support systems, and as guiding
concepts for educators and educational policymakers, they are
important even without evaluation and monitoring. Particularly
worthy of mention here are the mathematics standards of the
NCTM, whose broad influence derives solely from their pedago-
gical vision and competency model, but not from actual testing.
When schools in particular states or regions decide to conduct
internal evaluations focusing on particular subjects and quality
criteria, they already have at their disposal a wealth of instru-
ments that have emerged out of TIMSS and PISA, nationwide
comparative studies, and student assessments. Although these
are not designed explicitly according to national educational
standards, they can give schools valid indications of potential
strengths and weaknesses. The PISA cycles planned for 2003 and
2006, as well as the DESI study, which focuses on language com-
petencies (German, English), will provide sufficient material for
educational monitoring. For primary schools, furthermore, inter-
esting findings from the international primary school study
PIRLS/IGLU will become available in spring 2003.

131
 As we have repeatedly underscored in this study, standards and
the tests that build on them acquire their pedagogical value
above all through their rooting in competency models. Deve-
loping these models takes time and sound scientific support.
Germany currently possesses only a fraction of the resources
necessary for educational administration and educational
science. The German Research Foundation has responded to the
international comparative studies by undertaking major efforts
to intensify educational research and support new generations of
educational scientists. It will take a few more years, however,
before these efforts begin to bear fruit.
In view of the numerous issues surrounding the transition to out-
put-driven management procedures, careful planning is neces-
sary. As demonstrated by the examples of Great Britain and the
USA, a pedagogically inadequate use of standards can be coun-
terproductive (e.g., the simplistic school rankings used in Great
Britain during certain periods, or the misuse of high-stakes
assessment in the USA for the evaluation of individuals).
In the authoring groups view, the discussion regarding edu-
cational standards and their development and the success of the
measures proposed will depend crucially on how well the total
approach is accepted, particularly by teachers. Only if practicing
teachers can be made the driving force behind this reform only
if they understand this reform as being completely and funda-
mentally in their own professional interest will it lead to a
renewal and qualitative long-term change in the culture of
instruction and learning.
Before educational reforms achieve empirically verifiable results,
more than one legislative period will pass, and more likely two
or three. This has been shown in countries such as Sweden, Fin-
land and Canada. In Great Britain, reforms introduced at the end
of the 1980s bore fruit in international comparisons only after
more then ten years.
American science didactics expert Rodger Bybee recently (2002)
demonstrated, based on the introduction of new literacy concepts
into science teaching, that such reforms require three to four years
from statement of intent to development of central themes and
standards, but that another four to six years should be allotted for
their implementation (i.e. for the development and introduction
of innovative instructional concepts and teaching materials, in-ser-
vice training, etc.). Bybees assessment of the sheer scale of such re-
forms helps make this timeframe more understandable: as he sees

132
 it, in the course of implementation, the number of participants
increases, they are integrated into a growing number of insti-
tutions, the materials to be developed rise in number and com-
plexity, and increasingly deep strata of activity are affected (star-
ting from general goal orientations and reaching to individual
instructional methods). This in turn makes it more difficult to win
the support of an increased number of persons, institutions and
interest groups and to convince them to participate in the process
and to develop or adopt shared beliefs. Thus, for projects like the
introduction of educational standards, educational policy needs to
have patience and perseverance.

133
134
 Appendix (a)
The Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages
An Example for the Development
of a Competency Model and of Language
Competency Scales
In conclusion we would like to take a look at future pros-
pects for the development of competency models. In
doing so, we turn for examples to European approaches
in the field of foreign languages and foreign language
testing. Specifically, we present the Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages. Learning, Teaching,
Assessment (Council of Europe 2000; abbreviated in the
following as CEF or Framework). This document has gone
through an extended process of development and various
versions, and it currently plays a moderately significant
although not central role in the German discussion. The
framework aims to create transparency and compara-
bility in determining, elaborating, and screening foreign
language competencies in Europe. In so doing, it strives
to provide a broad basis for making instructional plans,
for learning, and above all, for evaluating foreign
language abilities. It must be said from the outset that,
although it is the product of more than 30 years of un-
ceasing work by the Council of Europe to lay the basis for
a competency model, the evolving structure of the Com-
mon European Framework of Reference can still be
described as a (theoretical) work in progress or perhaps
an unfinished innovation. However, it can certainly also
be seen as a treasure chest (Quetz 2003) or quarry: a
source from which various professional user groups can
derive ideas and perspectives, and obtain suggestions for
Appendix (a)

the formulation of standards as required. The Framework

is structured as a flexible branching scheme (CEF, p. 32)
whose defined fields of competency can each be further
subdivided or grouped according to other parameters,
and whose scale levels can be further differentiated and
refined. The CEF also describes how this can be carried
out on a sound scientific basis.

135
 1. What Form does the Frameworks Competency Model Take?
The Frameworks competency model is defined as an action-orien-
ted approach to language use and learning. This model describes
what it means to master a (foreign) language, the various dimen-
sions involved, and how each degree of language mastery can best
be formulated for each dimension and sub-competency (verbal).
The Framework itself is not a diagnostic instrument; rather, it sys-
tematises dimensions and levels of communicative ability and puts
them into concrete terms through descriptors linked closely to
behaviour. It therefore provides a good starting point for the deve-
lopment of test items, assessments and other testing procedures
that can be used to asses the language competencies of individual
persons.
The CEFs dimensions are broadly rooted in the national and trans-
national discourse. They are theoretically plausible and offer a
basis for achieving consensus. Using these dimensions, testing
instruments can be developed that describe and record what any
foreign language learner can do (understand, express, or commu-
nicate) with the language acquired so far, whether he or she is a
beginner or a lifelong learner having already completed school,
and potentially possessing very advanced knowledge and skills.
With the aid of these instruments, it is possible to reliably scale the
abilities of beginners as well as those with near native proficiency
in a foreign language. Thus, the CEF fulfils one of this reports
essential requirements for standards in competency models: it
depicts differences and stages in language development, and thus
can be used to identify competency levels within a cumulative
learning process. The CEF also allows the competencies underlying
language mastery and the current state of language ability to be
understood in all their breadth and complexity, independent of
the particular language learning and acquisition process. Instead,
it concentrates on identifying if and how well something has been
mastered and strives to present as complete a picture as possible
thereof. In this respect, it is exceptionally well suited as a basis for
standards and for measuring current language levels at any given
point in the development or life of a foreign language learner
(see also Vollmer 2003).
The CEF is based on a comprehensive understanding of human
communicative ability, which results out of both general compe-
tencies (less closely linked to language) and, above all, communica-
tive language competencies. Thus it differentiates between these
two global areas of competence and then further subdivides them
as follows:

136
 General competencies
1) Declarative knowledge (of the world)
2) General practical skills and procedural knowledge
3) Personality-related competencies (attitudes, motivations, values
and beliefs, cognitive styles and many other personality factors),
4) Ability to learn (language and communicative awareness,
learning techniques).

Communicative language competencies (in a more narrow sense)

1. Linguistic competencies (knowledge of a language and rules
governing its use),
2. Sociolinguistic competencies (knowledge and observation of the
sociocultural conditions of language use),
3. Pragmatic competencies (functional use of language resources).

Each of these three branches is then further divided into a number

of subcategories, producing a widely branching model of commu-
nicative competence that can be made more finely detailed as
required.
Within the area of linguistic competencies, lexical, grammatical,
semantic, phonological, orthographic, and orthoepic compe-
tence are differentiated.
Pragmatic competencies are subdivided into discourse compe-
tence, functional competence and competence in using inter-
action schemata. Discourse competence (also referred to as text
competence), in turn encompasses dimensions such as flexibility
(adapting to the circumstances of the communicative situation),
turn-taking (only for verbal communication), thematic develop-
ment, as well as coherence and cohesion, the latter two also
including the knowledge of and ability to use different types and
varieties of texts.
Components of sociolinguistic competencies include the capacity
to use linguistic markers of social relations, knowledge and
observation of politeness conventions and register differences,
the knowledge of idioms, proverbs, familiar quotations and
expressions, and the ability to recognise language varieties
(CEF p. 120121).

The understanding of these competencies presented in the CEF is

analogous to the one presented here in Chapter 6: they are seen
as dispositions, the internal representations, mechanisms and

137
 capacities that determine peoples observable behaviour and
performance. At the same time, any learning process will help
to develop or transform these same internal representations,
mechanisms and capacities. (CEF, p. 14).
Finally, it names two further dimensions of competence that play
(or should play) a fundamental role in determining linguistic
action: on the one hand, communicative strategies that accompa-
ny or guide all linguistic activity on the mental level, therefore
constituting an important aspect of linguistic capacity (following
Bachman 1990, and Bachman & Palmer 1996), and on the other,
intercultural abilities.
The Framework goes far beyond the mere identification and
cursory description of basic language competencies: it assumes
that they can be observed not directly but through various
communicative language activities (receptive, interactive, produc-
tive) that are carried out either in specific areas of social life
(domains; e.g., public, private, professional) or within these
domains in specific situations, which together form the context
of language competencies. Finally, the competencies mentioned
always unfold through the mastery of specific tasks (which de-
mand specific strategies) and ultimately lead to understanding,
revising or producing specific texts, text varieties, or text func-
tions as the socially relevant expressions of language possession.
This insight is taken as the starting point to elaborate a detailed
system of communicative activities below the three aforementioned
areas of communicative competence, that essentially structures and
names performance areas in which competence finds concrete
expression. Oral and written aspects are distinguished for each of
the communicative activity types reception, interaction, and pro-
duction. In the subcategory of spoken interaction, for example,
further contexts of action are differentiated, e.g., understanding
a native speaker interlocutor, conversation, informal discussion,
formal discussions and meetings, goal-oriented cooperation,
transactions to obtain goods and services, information exchange,
interviewing and being interviewed. It is clear that overall, these
are very similar to the standard areas of communicative activity,
which include listening comprehension, reading comprehension,
verbal interaction, monological language production and
writing. However the CEFs categories can be further structured
and differentiated according to the situation and complexity of
the action required, and the degree of abstraction or explicitness
of expression required. All these additional performance cate-
gories and parameters, as well as their respective sub-categories,

138
 are needed in order to identify the contextual conditions in
enough detail to describe levels of action, to construct and for-
mulate sequences of action, and to formulate examples of test
items. Competencies should, after all, only be attributed to a per-
son when he or she can demonstrate them in a variety of con-
texts.

2. What Form do the Scales Assessing Language Competence Take?

The Framework not only offers a differentiated competency model
for foreign language abilities but also includes numerous assess-
ment criteria and reference levels. This enables a foreign language
learner to be rated relatively accurately on a scale of proficiency in
a specific area of competence. It thus makes a fairly reliable state-
ment of his or her proficiency in a specific area, i.e., the level at
which a particular linguistic activity has been carried out and
where this performance can be situated in the overall scale.
The Framework starts with an initial division into three broad
levels, A) basic users, B) independent users and C) proficient users,
and breaks these down into six further levels which apply to both
general and specific aspects of foreign language competence:
A1/A2, B1/B2 and C1/C2. For each level and each area of compe-
tence, verbal descriptors outline in more or less differentiated,
clear and comprehensible terms, what a foreign language learner
can or should be able to do when situated at that level. These levels
have also been differentiated into more specific levels, identified
either by the use of + and - symbols or through decimal extension,
e.g., A1.1, A2.1.2, etc. (flexible branching approach). The Frame-
work is thus also an ideal tool for use in creating finer competency
levels (tailored to fit particular purposes, learner groups or edu-
cation systems).
For example, in a school system extending from primary to lower
secondary school, or in a system of adult education in which it is
deemed necessary to make lower levels of progress evident, it
would be possible to develop the Basic User stem to produce a set
of six milestones with finer differentiation at level A2 (waystage),
where large numbers of learners would likely be found.
These scales of language competence and their various descriptors
(at each of six levels, with possible sublevels) have been developed
in an extremely thorough manner under participation of various
expert and user groups, revised several times, and validated
empirically to the extent possible (see, e.g., North 2000). Never-
theless, there are still a number of problems that have not (yet)

139
 A B
Basic User Independent
User

A1 A2 B1
6
A1.1 A1.2 A2.1 A2.2
1 2 5

A2.1.1 A2.1.2
3 4

been completely explained or solved, for example, how the per-

formance aspects of a particular descriptor are interlinked and
weighted in relation to one another, or if all of the intervals
between levels are identical. For many competence areas, there are
systematically developed and validated scales in existence, but for
others, they either do not yet exist or have not yet been adequately
tested/validated. To illustrate this, we present two scales here: a
more global one on Overall Oral Production (Figure 6), and a more
specific one on Spoken Fluency (Figure 7).

3. How Important is the Framework for the Assessment and

Evaluation of Language Competence through Testing?
The Council of Europe outlines the three most important ways in
which the Framework itself can be used: 1. for the specification of
the content of tests and examinations. 2. for stating the criteria for
the attainment of a learning objective, both in relation to the
assessment of a particular spoken or written performance, and in
relation to continuous teacher-, peer- or self-assessment., 3. for
describing the levels of proficiency in existing tests and examina-
tions thus enabling comparisons to be made across different sys-
tems of qualifications (CEF, p. 19).
The Frameworks approach to competence and its system of
descriptors, combined with the preparatory work conducted by
the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE), offers a concep-
tual framework which, in an extraordinarily brief period of time,
has indeed exerted a major impact on the development of new
language tests in Europe, particularly in out-of-school language

140
 Fig. 6

OVERALL ORAL PRODUCTION

C2 Can produce clear, smoothly flowing well-structured
speech with an effective logical structure which helps the
recipient to notice an remember significant points.
C1 Can give clear, detailed descriptions and presentations on
complex subjects, integrating sub-themes, developig par-
ticular points and rounding off with an appropriate con-
clusion.
B2 Can give clear, systematically developed descriptions and
presentations, with appropriate highlighting of signifi-
cant points, and relevant supporting detail.
Can give clear, detailed descriptions and presentations on
a wide range of subjects related to his/her field of interest,
expanding and supporting ideas with subsidiary points
and relevant examples.
B1 Can reasonably fluently sustain a straightforward descrip-
tion of one of a variety of subjects within his/her field of
interest, presenting it as a linear sequence of points.
A2 Can give a simple description or presentation of people,
living or working conditions, daily routines, likes/dislikes,
etc. as a short series of simple phrases and sentences
linked into a list.
A1 Can produce simple mainly isolated phrases about people
and places.

courses. ALTE initially envisaged a system comprising five levels

that could be used to calibrate the examinations of member
institutions, thus guaranteeing the comparability of competing
and complementary course offerings throughout Europe (ALTE
1998; see also Milanovic 2001). In Sweden, however, the minimally
defined standards for languages are evaluated using a seven-level
assessment framework, even up to the present day (see Skolverket
2001).
ALTEs can-do statements have been tested and validated through
accurate and detailed evaluation in many years of examinations
worldwide. Other examinations also make explicit reference to the
Framework, such as those developed by Weiterbildungs-Testsysteme
GmbH (WBT 1998, 2001), the German Chamber of Commerce (DIHT

141
 Fig. 7

SPOKEN FLUENCY
C2 Can express him/herself at length with a natural, effort-
less, unhesitating flow. Pauses only to reflect on precisely
the right words to express his/her thoughts or to find an
appropriate example or explanation.
C1 Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously,
almost effortlessly. Only a conceptually difficult subject
can hinder a natural, smooth flow of language.
B2 Can communicate spontaneously, often showing re-
markable fluency and ease of expression in even longer
complex stretches of speech.
Can produce stretches of language with a fairly even tem-
po; although he/she can be hesitant as he/she searches for
patterns and expressions, there are few noticeably long
pauses.
Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity
that makes regula interaction with native speakers quite
possible without imposing strain on either party.
B1 Can express him/herself with relative ease. Despite some
problems with formulation resulting in pauses and cul-
de-sacs, he/she is able to keep going effectively without
help.
Can keep going comprehensibly, even though pausing
for grammatical and lexical planning and repair is very
evident, especially in longer stretches of free production.
A2 Can make him/herself understood in short contributions,
even though pauses, false starts and reformulation are
very evident.
Can construc phrases on familiar topics with sufficient
ease to handle short exchanges, despite very noticeable
hesitation and false starts.
A1 Can manage very short, isolated, mainly pre-packaged
utterances, with much pausing to search for expressions,
to articulate less familiar words, and to repair communi-
cation.

2001), the Goethe-Institut Inter Nationes, and the DIALANG system,

which is funded by the Council of Europe, not to mention the

142
 TestDaF Institutes university entrance examinations (cf. Projekt-
gruppe TestDaF 2000). Thus it is already possible to speak of an
increasingly strong network association whose individual ele-
ments are tightly interwoven and mutually supportive (see also
Quetz 2003). The DESI study of German and English skills, which
was commissioned by the KMK and is currently being prepared for
launching, incorporates the Council of Europes levels into its
examination concepts for the ninth grade (see also Beck & Klieme
2003; Nold 2003).
Within the national education system, the Framework has also
generated its own dynamic, with lively discussions already taking
place around the reference levels to be attained upon completion
of basic and advanced courses at Abitur level (profile at B2 or C1;
see the new EPA uniform requirements for the Abitur English
examination of May 2002; KMK 2002a). Also under discussion is
the question of what level to set for the comparative testing slated
to take place at the end of the tenth grade of Gymnasium. In the
states of Baden-Wrttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, new
framework curricula have been developed that refer explicitly to
the Framework and take it as their point of orientation. In de-
veloping a Language Portfolio that is open in design and yet offers
potential for consensus and a national scope, it will be necessary to
refer to the preparatory work of the Common European Frame-
work of Reference for Languages. However, the Portfolio is a tool of
documentation and evaluation that will enable language teaching
and learning (including self-evaluation) to be continuously de-
veloped and improved, particularly at the interfaces between
primary and lower secondary school systems as well as between
school, working life and continued non-institutionalised learning.
Working on this kind of common portfolio for all of the states
could, among other things, lead to drafting standardised assess-
ment criteria for learning outcomes and performance levels
between primary and secondary school or between secondary
school and working life. In this way, competencies and competency
levels can be designed to build upon one another. This would also
enable the descriptors of the Framework to be assimilated or
enhanced for use in developing curricula and in drafting and eva-
luating potential sample test items and would thus require close
cooperation among the states (on the European Language Portfolio
in general, see Babylonia 1999, 2000; Schneider 2001; on the dis-
cussion in Germany see Landesinstitut fr Schule und Weiterbil-
dung 2000; Thringer Kultusministerium, 2002; KMK 2002b;
Thrmann 2003).

143
 Thus, although the Council of Europe does not use concepts such
as standards or core curriculum at all in its Framework, its
competency model and its levels, categories and basic descriptions
are already being used in this sense. The Framework can be seen as
a example from a specific domain of how a highly differentiated
competency model can provide the basis to formulate specific ex-
pectations for qualifications and levels of qualification (with sys-
tems of education and support geared toward achieving these
goals). Furthermore, it shows how these expectations can lead the
way to creating broad consensus on the adoption of binding edu-
cational or performance standards (with commensurate demands
and external monitoring to determine whether standards are in
fact being attained and maintained).

144
 Appendix (b)
The Common Framework of Science
Outcomes (Canada)
The Common Framework of Science Outcomes is the re-
sult of supra-regional cooperation among the Council of
Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC). It is based on the
Victoria Declaration of 1993, which outlined a plan for
future directions in Canadian education with regard to
lifelong learning and societal demands. It recognised
commonly shared educational goals and expressed the
intention to ensure greater harmonisation of the ways to
set about achieving them. One step toward this goal was
the Pan-Canadian Protocol for Collaboration on School
Curriculum of 1995. The protocol confirms the responsi-
bility of the provinces for managing the education sys-
tem, but at the same time recognises that cooperation
among the provincial authorities can contribute to im-
proving the quality of education nationwide. The
Common Framework of Science Outcomes is the first
common project initiated by the Protocol. One of the
stated goals of the Framework is to ensure greater harmo-
nization of curricula in the natural sciences. This Frame-
work is directed mainly towards those who are engaged
in developing curricula.
We have chosen to print excerpts of the Common Frame-
work here because it provides a good example of how
standards could be developed in a federal system beyond
the state/provincial level based on didactic considerations
(here: a differentiated conception of scientific literacy).
Another interesting aspect of the Frameworks design is
that the following components can be clearly identified:
1. educational goals 2. competency models and 3. differ-
Appendix (B)

entiated competency requirements, thus mirroring the

conception of educational standards advocated here. The
competency dimensions extend throughout the educatio-
nal career like the NCTMs mathematics standards des-
cribed in Chapter 3 and are developed in concrete
terms for each individual grade, which gives rise to a
systematic conception of scholastic instruction and l
earning designed around cumulative competency
development.

145
 Preamble: Social Targets and the Status of the Subject in
the Process of Training and Education

a) A vision for scientific literacy in Canada

The framework is guided by the vision that all Canadian students,
regardless of gender or cultural background, will have an opport-
unity to develop scientific literacy. Scientific literacy is an evolving
combination of the science-related attitudes, skills, and knowledge
students need to develop inquiry, problem-solving, and decision-
making abilities, to become lifelong learners, and to maintain a
sense of wonder about the world around them.
Diverse learning experiences based on the framework will provide
students with many opportunities to explore, analyse, evaluate,
synthesize, appreciate, and understand the interrelationships
among science, technology, society, and the environment that will
affect their personal lives, their careers, and their future.

b) The scientific literacy needs of Canadian students and society

Canadian society is experiencing rapid and fundamental eco-
nomic, social, and cultural changes that affect the way we live.
Canadians are also becoming aware of an increasing global inter-
dependence and the need for a sustainable environment, economy,
and society. The emergence of a highly competitive and integrated
international economy, rapid technological innovation, and a
growing knowledge base will continue to have a profound impact
on our lives. Advancements in science and technology play an
increasingly significant role in everyday life. Science education will
be a key element in developing scientific literacy and in building a
strong future for Canadas young people. Consistent with views
expressed in a variety of national and international science edu-
cation documents, the following goals for Canadian science edu-
cation have been established for the purposes of this framework.
Specifically, science education aims to:
encourage students at all grade levels to develop a critical sense
of wonder and curiosity about scientific and technological
endeavours
enable students to use science and technology to acquire new
knowledge and solve problems, so that they may improve the
quality of their own lives and the lives of others
prepare students to critically address science-related societal,
economic, ethical, and environmental issues

146
 provide students with a foundation in science that creates
opportunities for them to pursue progressively higher levels of
study, prepares them for science-related occupations, and
engages them in science-related hobbies appropriate to their
interests and abilities
develop in students of varying aptitudes and interests a know-
ledge of the wide variety of careers related to science, technolo-
gy, and the environment

Science education must be the basis for informed participation in a

technological society, a part of a continuing process of education,
a preparation for the world of work, and a means for students personal
development. Science Council of Canada (1984)

1. Educational Goals
Foundation statements for scientific literacy in Canada
Scientific literacy should remain the abstract image that leads science
education reform. Eisenhart, M. et al. (1996)
In light of the vision for scientific literacy and the need to develop
scientific literacy in Canada, four foundation statements were
established for this framework. Curriculum developers should note
that these foundation statements delineate the four critical aspects
of students scientific literacy. They reflect the wholeness and inter-
connectedness of learning and should be considered as interrela-
ted and mutually supportive. The learning outcomes in this frame-
work are stated in relation to these foundation statements.
Foundation 1: Science, technology, society, and the environment
(STSE)
Students will develop an understanding of the nature of science
and technology, of the relationships between science and tech-
nology, and of the social and environmental contexts of science
and technology.
Foundation 2: Skills
Students will develop the skills required for scientific and tech-
nological inquiry, for solving problems, for communicating scien-
tific ideas and results, for working collaboratively, and for making
informed decisions.
Foundation 3: Knowledge
Students will construct knowledge and understandings of concepts
in life science, physical science, and Earth and space science, and

147
 apply these understandings to interpret, integrate, and extend
their knowledge.
Foundation 4: Attitudes
Students will be encouraged to develop attitudes that support the
responsible acquisition and application of scientific and tech-
nological knowledge to the mutual benefit of self, society, and the
environment.

Excursus: Didactic Preconditions for Reaching Educational Goals

Development of the four foundation statements
Before describing the Foundations it detail that is, before devel-
oping a model of competency of the kind proposed in this report
the Common Framework presents the basic conception of learning
and instruction that it takes as its foundation. Even if the Frame-
work firmly rejects any fixed ideas of specific didactic methods for
classroom teaching, it is like the mathematics standards of the
NCTM described in Chapter 3 rooted in a vision of natural
science instruction. Here it becomes clear that these standards are
designed to orient learning towards comprehension. Instruction is
to include learning activities that enable discovery-based learning
and problem solving.
Curriculum developers should note that the following considera-
tions about student learning and the teaching of science were
taken into account during the development of the framework.
Student learning is affected by personal and cultural preconcep-
tions and prior knowledge. Students learn most effectively when
their study of science is rooted in concrete learning experiences,
related to a particular context or situation, and applied to their
world where appropriate. Science activities, therefore, occur within
a socio-cultural context, are interpreted within that context, and
are designed to extend and challenge existing views.
The ideas and understandings that students develop are pro-
gressively extended and reconstructed as students grow in their
experiences and in their ability to conceptualise. Learning involves
the process of linking newly constructed understandings with prior
knowledge and adding new contexts and experiences to current
understandings.
Learning is enhanced when students identify and solve problems.
Through such learning, students develop attitudes, skills, and a

148
 knowledge base that allow them to explore increasingly complex
ideas and problems, especially if these are placed in a meaningful
context.
Students learn to understand the world by developing personal
conceptions, constructing mental images, and sharing these with
others using everyday language, in diverse situations that respect a
wide variety of learners.
[I]t is important for students to learn that they can understand and deal
with the world by means of their own observations and constructed
explanations, that all such explanatory frameworks have their limita-
tions, and that science offers frameworks for explanations and control
which, while also limited in scope, have been shown to possess parti-
cular explanatory power and which have thus become accepted by the
scientific community and by society as a whole. Science Council of
Canada (1984)
(...) Presenting a body of knowledge to students (whether it is in telling
them more or showing them better) will not suffice in order for stu-
dents to understand, memorize and internalize that knowledge. Every
student must individually and personally construct each bit of under-
standing, using tools at her or his disposal, namely her or his own ideas
and thought processes. De Vecchi, G. & Giordan, A. (1990)

Teaching of science
This framework of outcomes is designed to support the develop-
ment in students of the attitudes, skills, and knowledge needed for
developing problem-solving and decision-making abilities, for be-
coming lifelong learners, and for maintaining a sense of wonder
about the world around them in short, to develop scientific
literacy.
Development of scientific literacy is supported by instructional
environments that engage students in active inquiry, problem
solving and decision making. Diverse learning experiences involve
designing activities so they are set in meaningful contexts. It is
through these contexts that students discover the significance of
science to their lives and come to appreciate the interrelated
nature of science, technology, society, and the environment.
To facilitate instructional planning, examples of instructional con-
texts (called illustrative examples) are provided in the section
that presents learning outcomes by grade. The selection of partic-
ular contexts and their development will likely vary with the local

149
 situation, and reflect factors such as the prior learning of the
students, the dynamics of the classroom, the nature of the local
environment, and available learning resources.
Although the particular contexts may vary, the overall scope and
focus will normally include the following broad areas of emphasis:
a science inquiry emphasis, in which students address questions
about the nature of things, involving broad exploration as well
as focussed investigations
a problem-solving emphasis, in which students seek answers to
practical problems requiring the application of their science
knowledge in new ways
a decision-making emphasis, in which students identify questions
or issues and pursue science knowledge that will inform the
question or issue

Each of these three areas of emphasis provides a potential starting

point for engaging in an area of study. These studies may involve
a variety of learning approaches for exploring new ideas, for de-
veloping specific investigations, and for applying the ideas that are
learned. Specific ways of encouraging students to explore, develop
and apply ideas are modelled in the illustrative examples.
To achieve the vision of scientific literacy, students must increa-
singly become engaged in the planning, development, and eva-
luation of their own learning activities. In the process, they should
have the opportunity to work collaboratively with other students,
to initiate investigations, to communicate their findings, and to
complete projects that demonstrate their learning.

2. General Competency Model

Description of the foundation statements
The description of the foundation statements gives an overview of the
dimensions of competency covered by the framework. It includes
four foundations: 1) science, technology, society and the environ-
ment; 2) skills; 3) knowledge; and 4) attitudes. In the following, just
one foundation statement (foundation 2: skills) is reproduced as an
example.
Foundation 2: Skills
Students will develop the skills required for scientific and tech-
nological inquiry, for solving problems, for communicating scien-
tific ideas and results, for working collaboratively, and for making
informed decisions.

150
 Students use a variety of skills in the process of answering ques-
tions, solving problems, and making decisions. While these skills
are not unique to science, they play an important role in the de-
velopment of scientific understandings and in the application of
science and technology to new situations. The listing of the skills is
not intended to imply a linear sequence or to identify a single set
of skills required in each science investigation. Every investigation
and application of science has unique features that determine the
particular mix and sequence of skills involved. Skills are identified
for each grade grouping and at each grade level. Most of the basic
skills are given considerable attention in the early years, while
specific skills are developed and refined in the senior years.
Four broad areas of skills are outlined in the framework. Each
group of skills is developed from kindergarten to grade 12, with
increasing scope and complexity of application.
Initiating and planning
These are the skills of questioning, identifying problems, and de-
veloping preliminary ideas and plans.
Performing and recording
These are the skills of carrying out a plan of action, which involves
gathering evidence by observation and, in most cases, manipu-
lating materials and equipment.
Analysing and interpreting
These are the skills of examining information and evidence, of pro-
cessing and presenting data so that it can be interpreted, and of
interpreting, evaluating, and applying the results. (see point 3
below)

Communication and teamwork

In science, as in other areas, communication skills are essential at
every stage where ideas are being developed, tested, interpreted,
debated, and agreed upon. Teamwork skills are also important,
since the development and application of science ideas is a colla-
borative process both in society and in the classroom.
There can be no greater contribution or more essential element to long-
term environmental strategies leading to sustainable development that
respects the environment... than the education of future generations in
matters relating to the environment. UNESCO (1988)
Science is a creative process which attempts to discover and understand,
thereby generating knowledge.... Science is often viewed as both a pro-
duct and a process. Hart, E.P. (1987)

151
 Interactions among the
four areas of skills

Scientific knowledge is necessary but is not in itself sufficient for

understanding the relationships among science, technology, socie-
ty, and the environment. To understand these relationships, it is
also essential to understand the values inherent to science, tech-
nology, a particular society, and its environment.
As students advance from grade to grade, the understandings
about STSE interrelationships are developed and applied in in-
creasingly demanding contexts. In the early years, considerable
attention is given to students acquiring an operational under-
standing of these interrelationships. In the later years, these under-
standings are more conceptual in nature. Growth in STSE under-
standings may involve each of the following elements:
complexity of understanding from simple, concrete ideas to
abstract ideas; from limited knowledge of science to more in-
depth and broader knowledge of science and the world
applications in context from contexts that are local and personal
to those that are societal and global
consideration of variables and perspectives from one or two that
are simple to many that are complex
critical judgement from simple right or wrong assessments to
complex evaluations
decision making from decisions based on limited knowledge,
made with teacher guidance, to decisions based on extensive
research, involving personal judgement and made indepen-
dently, without guidance

152
 For individual students, the development of STSE understandings
may be earlier or later than the times identified in the framework,
depending in large part on their stage of cognitive and social de-
velopment.

3. Developing Competencies at Different Levels

a) as general learning outcomes
b) as specific outcomes
In the following, the second foundation (skills) described above is
presented as an example of competency requirements for the abili-
ties of analysis and interpretation. The sixth and ninth grades have
been chosen to show the progressive gradation of competency
requirements. They are divided into general and specific learning
outcomes of educational processes. The former are related to
phases of education, while the latter specify exactly what is to be
achieved by the end of a grade.
a) General learning outcomes by the end of grade 6
Analysing and interpreting
It is expected that students will...
206
interpret findings from investigations using appropriate methods
b) Specific Learning Outcomes (Grade 6)
Analysing and interpreting
206-1
classify according to several attributes and create a chart or
diagram that shows the method of classifying (e.g., classify orga-
nisms found in pond water using criteria they have developed
themselves)
206-9
identify new questions or problems that arise from what was
learned (e.g., identify questions such as How can students from
different parts of the country and around the world communicate
effectively about animals and plants?)

a) General learning outcomes by the end of grade 9

Analysing and interpreting
It is expected that students will...
210
analyse qualitative and quantitative data and develop and assess
possible explanations

153
 b) Specific Learning Outcomes (Grade 9)
Analysing and interpreting
210-4
predict the value of a variable by interpolating or extrapolating
from graphical data (e.g., predict the time of ovulation from a
graph of daily body temperatures)
210-6
interpret patterns and trends in data, and infer and explain rela-
tionships among the variables (e.g., suggest an explanation for
trends in the optimum reproductive years of women)
210-8
apply given criteria for evaluating evidence and sources of infor-
mation (e.g., consider the date of publication, the relevance, and
the perspective of the author of an information source on repro-
ductive technologies)

154
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International empirical studies have revealed serious
flaws in the German school system. Comparison with
the countries that performed well in the PISA study
indicates that Germany cannot expect to return to
the top of the international ranking tables unless
1
radical reforms are undertaken in the education
system. The state can no longer ensure quality by
issuing detailed guidelines and regulations, but must
define goals and objectives and then monitor their
achievement. The development of nationwide

Education Reform
educational standards based on competency models
is a key element of this reform process.

This report aims to provide a specialist definition of

the concept of educational standards, taking the
international debate on education policy and
educational science into account, and to present a
framework describing the function of educational
standards in the overall context of educational
monitoring, school evaluation and the evaluation of
specific programmes. Since educational standards are
to be designed in such a way that they become the
driving force in the pedagogical development of our
schools, the expertise also considers the conditions
that will facilitate their successful implementation.
BMBF

Furthermore, the report describes the infrastructure

required for the development and evaluation of
educational standards in Germany.