A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Appendix 2

Sample Standards

Mathematics
Standard 11: STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY

From the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics.

"In grades K-4, the mathematics curriculum should include experiences with data analysis and probability so that students can:

• collect, organize, and describe data;
• construct, read, and interpret display of data;
• formulate and solve problems that involve collecting and analyzing data;
• explore concepts of chance.

Note: NCTM created about 13 standards like this one for three grade clusters (K-4, 5-8, 9-12). That's 40 standards, in all, plus explanations and sample learning activities. NCTM sees these standards as "a coherent vision of what it means to be mathematically literate." They are designed to be used to "guide the revision of the school mathematics curriculum" and assessment.

Science

From Science Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve. Sacramento, 1990

Section D: Energy Sources and Transformations

What is energy? What are its characteristics?

Kindergarten Through Grade Three

Forms of energy can be classified in several ways, depending on our purposes. Energy is manifested when we drop a ball, strike a match, make waves in a bathtub, clap our hands or rub them briskly together, or turn on a flashlight. Each form of energy has its own characteristics. For example, a given material will transmit some forms of energy and absorb or reflect others. A sheet of thick paper transmit sound but not light. A stretched sheet of plastic wrap transmits light but not water waves. Heat is a form of energy often produced by conversion from other forms, as can easily be demonstrated by the warming of a dark object exposed to sunlight. The capacity of waves to carry energy can be demonstrated by observing how water waves (for example, in wave tanks) set floating objects into motion. Energy is required when work is done is done on a system or when matter changes its form. [Energy, Systems and interactions, Patterns of Change]

Grades Three Through Six

Energy passes through ecosystems in food chains mainly in the form of the chemical energy supplied to each organism by the nourishment it consumes. All organisms convert some of this energy into heat. Animals also convert some of it into mechanical energy. Green plants convert light energy into chemical energy by means of the photochemical process called photosynthesis. (See Chapter 5, Section A. Living Things.) [Systems and Interactions, Energy]

Note: The purposes of the California Science Framework are to: "(1) establish guidelines and provide direction to help districts revise their curricula, evaluate their programs, assess their instruction, and develop instructional strategies; (2) serve as a resource for preservice and in-service education of teachers and administrators; (3) provide direction to publishers for the development of textbooks and instructional materials and to reviewers for selecting instructional materials and testing programs; and (4) make information on curricula available to parents and the general public."

Reading and Writing

From Colordao Draft Model Content Standards. Final Discussion Draft. Standards and Assessment Council, Denver, Colorado. December 1995

1. Students write and speak for a variety of purposes and for diverse audiences.

2. Students write and speak using conventional grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.

3. Students read and understand a variety of materials.

4. Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing.

5. Students read to locate, select, and make use of relevant information from a variety of media, reference, and technological sources.

6. Students read and recognize literature as an expression of human experience.

Standard 3
Students Read and Understand a Variety of Materials.

In order to meet this standard students will

• use comprehension strategies such as previewing, predicting, inferring, comparing and contrasting, re-reading, summarizing, identifying the author's purpose, determining the main idea, researching new material, and applying knowledge of foreshadowing, metaphor, simile, symbolism, and other figures of speech.

• make connections between their reading and what they already know by identifying experiences that are common to themselves and to the character, information, and events depicted in the reading material, and identify what they already know and need to know about a topic before reading about it.

• adjust reading strategies for different purposes: reading carefully, idea by idea; skimming and scanning; fitting materials into an organizational pattern, such as reading a novel chronologically; finding information to support particular ideas; and finding the sequence of steps in a technical publication.

• use word recognition strategies and resources (for example, phonics, context clues, picture clues, word origins, word order clues, reference guides, studying roots, prefixes, and suffixes of words).

Rationale

The goal for students at all levels is that they know and can use strategies--various ways of unlocking the meaning of words and larger blocks of text--to become successful readers. The strategies are applied in increasingly difficult reading material at each grade level. At all levels, students should be challenged to read literature and other materials that reflect and stimulate their interests and intellectual abilities. Reading from a wide variety of texts provides experience in gaining information and pleasure from diverse forms and perspectives, including from other cultures.

Grades K-4

In grades K-4, what the students know and are able to do includes

• applying word recognition strategies and comprehension strategies as they read a variety of materials: rhymes and poems, stories, directions, nonfiction material, fairy tales, and folk tales, including those from other communities and cultures.

Grades 5-8

As students in 5-8 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• applying word recognition strategies and comprehension strategies as they add technical writing, newspapers, magazines, poetry, short stories, plays, and novels to the types of reading material mentioned above. Students extend their thinking and understanding as they read stories of children from different economic, ethnic, and social backgrounds.

Grades 9-12

As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes

• applying word recognition strategies and comprehension strategies as they add essays, speeches, autobiographies, and first-person historical documents to the types of literature mentioned above.

For students extending their English/Language Arts education, what they know and are able to do may include applying word recognition skills and comprehension strategies as they explore literary criticism and literary analysis, professional and technical journals, and professional-level reading materials that match their career or academic interests.

Civics

K-4 Content Standards

I. What Is Government And What Should It Do?

A. What is government?

B. Where do people in government get the authority to make, apply, and enforce rules and laws and manage disputes about them?

C. Why is government necessary?

D. What are some of the most important things governments do?

E. What are the purposes of rules and laws?

F. How can you evaluate rules and laws?

G. What are the differences between limited and unlimited governments?

H. Why is it important to limit the power of government?

II. What Are The Basic Values And Principles Of American Democracy?

A. What are the most important values and principles of American democracy?

B. What are some important beliefs Americans have about themselves and their government?

C. Why is it important for Americans to share certain values, principles, and beliefs?

D. What are the benefits of diversity in the United States?

E. How should conflicts about diversity be prevented or managed?

F. How can people work together to promote the values and principles of American democracy?

III. How Does The Government Established By The Constitution Embody The Purposes, Values, And Principles Of American Democracy?

A. What is the United States Constitution and why is it important?

B. What does the national government do and how does it protect individual rights and promote the common good?

C. What are the major responsibilities of state governments?

D. What are the major responsibilities of local governments?

E. Who represents you in the legislative and executive branches of your local, state, and national governments?

IV. What Is The Relationship Of The United States To Others Nations And To World Affairs?

A. How is the world divided into nations?

B. How do nations interact with one another?

V. What Are The Roles Of The Citizen In American Democracy?

A. What does it mean to be a citizen of the United States?

B. How does a person become a citizen?

C. What are important rights in the United States?

D. What are important responsibilities of Americans?

E. What dispositions or traits of character are important to the preservation and improvement of American democracy?

F. How can Americans participate in their government?

G. What is the importance of political leadership and public service?

H. How should Americans select leaders?

I. WHAT IS GOVERNMENT AND WHAT SHOULD IT DO?

A. What is government?

Content summary and rationale

At the early elementary level, government can be described as the people and groups within a society with the authority to make, carry out, and enforce laws and to manage disputes about them. Understanding what government does may be initiated in early grades by having students look at the governance of the family and school as analogous to the governance of the larger community and the nation. In the family, for example, parents make rules governing the behavior of their children. They also are responsible for enforcing these rules and for settling disputes when conflicts arise about them. In schools, teachers and administrators make, carry out, and enforce rules and laws and manage disputes about them.

These fundamental ideas about government and its functions provide a basis on which children in their earliest school years can begin to develop an understanding of the formal and informal institutions and processes of government in their communities, states, and the nation.

Content standards

1. Defining government. Students should be able to provide a basic description of government.

To achieve this standard, students should be able to

• describe government in terms of the people and groups who make, apply, and enforce rules and laws for others in their family, school, community, and nation and who manage disputes about them, e.g.,
  • adult family members make, apply, and enforce rules for their children and manage disputes about them

  • teachers, principals, and school boards make, apply, and enforce rules and laws for their schools and manage disputes about them

  • city councils and mayors make, apply, and enforce rules and laws for their communities

  • governors and state legislatures make, apply, and enforce rules and laws for their states

  • tribal governments make, apply, enforce rules and laws for tribal members in Indian country

  • the national government makes, applies, and enforces rules and laws for the nation

  • courts at all levels apply laws, manage disputes, and punish lawbreakers

From National Standards for Civics and Government, Grades K-4.
Center for Civic Education
5146 Douglas Fir Road
Calabasas, CA 91302

Geography

GEOGRAPHY CONTENT STANDARD 12:1

Seeing the World in Spatial Terms

STANDARD 1

How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools and technologies to acquire, process and report information from a spatial perspective.

By the end of twelfth grade, the student knows and understands:

1. how to use maps and other graphic representations to solve geographic problems;

2. how to use technologies to interpret physical and human systems of Earth;

3. how to use maps, globes, atlases, and other geographic tools to analyze and develop explanations and solutions to geographic problems.

Therefore, the student is able to:

A. Produce and interpret maps and other graphics to solve geographic problems, as exemplified by being able to

1. Develop maps illustrating how population density varies in relation to resources, urban and rural places, and agricultural land use (e.g. maps showing population density in cattle-raising regions or maps depicting the per capita homicide rate per police district in a country's major urban centers).

2. Correlate information from various media to transform primary data into maps, graphs and graphs, and charts (e.g. bar graphs showing wheat production in Argentina over a five-year period, or charts developed from recent census data ranking selected information on such topics as high school drop-out rates per state, literacy rates for the countries of Southwest Asia, or cartograms depicting the relative size of Latin American countries based on their urban populations).

3. Develop maps and graphs to show the relationships within and between regions (e.g., transportation networks illustrating rail, air, and highway connections between northern and southern Europe, or time to travel-distance ratios within the northeast megalopolis in the United States).

B. Use maps, globes, and other geographic tools to analyze world events and derive solutions to world problems, as exemplified by being able to:

1. Develop appropriate maps, tables, graphs, charts, or diagrams to depict the geographic implications of current world events, (e.g., maps showing changing political boundaries, tables showing the distribution of refugees from an area affected by a natural disaster).

2. Modify selected characteristics of a region (e.g., population, environment, politics, economics and culture) to set long-range planning goals.

C. Evaluate the applications of geographic tools and supporting technologies to serve particular purposes, as exemplified by being able to:

1. Provide evidence regarding the central role of maps throughout history to study and explore Earth (e.g., maps in the exploration of the world by navigators and polar explorers such as Scott, Peary, and Henson).

2. Collect, compare, and explain the significance of maps from different sources and perspectives illustrating the same phenomena (e.g., maps developed by the media, business, industry, and military to show how a recently closed naval installation can be utilized for civilian purposes).

3. Choose and give reasons to use appropriate technologies to analyze selected geographic problems (e.g. aerial photos, satellite imagery, and geographic information systems (GIS) to determine the extent of water pollution in a harbor complex, or the range of deforestation in Madagascar).

Arts

2. Content Standard: Acting by assuming roles and interacting in improvisations

Achievement Standard:

Students:

• imagine and clearly describe characters, their relationships, and their environments;

• use variations of locomotor and nonlocomotor movement and vocal pitch, tempo, and tone for different characters; and

• assume roles that exhibit concentration and contribute to the action of classroom dramatizations based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history.

From National Standards for Arts Education. Developed in coordination with the American Alliance for Theater and Education, the National Art Education Association, and the National Dance Association.

Educators National Conference Publications Sales
1806 Robert Fulton Drive
Reston, VA 22091

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National Standards for Arts Education are written for all students. The Standards affirm that a future worth having depends on being able to construct a vital relationship with the arts, and that doing so, as with any subject, is a matter of discipline and study. The Standards spell out what every young American should know and be able to do in the arts. The Standards say that students:

• should be able to communicate at a basic level in the four arts disciplines--dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts;

• should be able to communicate proficiently in at least one art form;

• should be able to develop and present basic analyses of works of art;

• should have an informed acquaintance with exemplary works of art from a variety of cultures and historical periods; and

• should be able to relate various types of arts knowledge and skills within and across the arts disciplines.

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