Opportunity-to-Learn Standards

The nation's commitment to providing a meaningful opportunity to learn for all students, particularly low-income and minority students, has been the source of much consideration since the 1954 school desegregation decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. The concept of setting standards to define or to require that schools offer the conditions needed to ensure students have equal access to educational opportunity has arisen in several different contexts. This discussion has included proposals to adopt opportunity-to-learn (OTL) standards, criteria and metrics that might be used to define and deliver the necessary resources for schools as well as to compare schools. OTL standards have arisen as part of the call for educational equity and access to resources, as a consideration for researchers assessing the nature of inputs into schools, as a commitment of professional obligation by educators, and as a statutory or constitutional mandate concerning all students or particular groups of students. Each of these has included consideration of the content of instruction, the resources essential to support learning, and the processes through which education occurs and is governed. Sometimes this debate explicitly uses the term opportunity-to-learn standards (sometimes called school delivery standards), but on many occasions, the concept of OTL standards is at issue even though that particular terminology is not used. Regardless of the terminology used, whether or not there should be explicit requirements to ensure learning opportunity in the provision of educational services has been, and continues to be, a source of debate for policymakers, practitioners, parents, and social science researchers.