LESSONS FOR THE NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL-PROGRESS FROM MILITARY STANDARD-SETTING

The U.S. military services have a long history of setting and using st andards. It is important to understand how military and education cont exts differ if one is to transfer any standard-setting lessons from th e miliary to the public education sector. First, the military system r egularly rotates personnel from operational to training positions and back again. This provides a natural feedback loop along which informat ion is passed to assist the training establishment in knowing its succ esses and failures. Second, military standards are ultimately linked a s closely as possible to real-world outcomes. Military standards matte r, and especially so to trainers whose lives may later rely on the abi lities of their former students. The major distinction and lesson to b e learned from military experience is that to be useful, standards mus t be grounded in real-world outcomes that affect the lives of educator s. National Assessment of Educational Progress standards currently app ear to be lacking on both counts.