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

Improving America's School: A Newsletter on Issues in School Reform - Spring 1996

Standards Setting Focuses Reform in Local Districts

School districts are not waiting for their states to complete standards; many are defining their own. Although there is no single formula for developing local standards, many communities turn to stakeholder committees--including business leaders, teachers, parents, administrators, and curriculum experts--to define content standards that become the starting point for systemic changes. Local standards setters incorporate state and national standards when available, but the community leads the process.

The Niagara City (New York) Public Schools ties its reform agenda to "Standards for Excellence"--the knowledge, skills, and attitudes every graduate is expected to attain. According to Cynthia Bianco, assistant to the superintendent, "All our planning goes back to the question of `How does it fit with the standards?'"

Niagara expects its graduates to become proficient in these content areas: computation, communication, science, literature, history, geography, vocabulary, civics and government, health, cultures, environment, technology, a second language, and human resources. It also expects each student to develop life-long learning skills by becoming a knowledgeable person, a complex thinker, a skilled consumer and processor of information, and an effective communicator and producer. Site-based management teams direct all of Niagara's schools, and each team develops its renewal plan and budget in connection with these standards.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina) has developed and disseminated performance standards for students in each grade that set high expectations comparable to those of Advanced Placement courses and the International Baccalaureate Program. In an effort to ensure shared expectations between home and school, the district has also produced and disseminated to parents a brochure for each grade level on what their children will be expected to know and do by the end of the school year. As grants specialist Carol Newman reports, however, it is important not only to set standards but to design them in concert with other reforms. In Newman's view, standards are a "useful cushion" on which to rest the district's ambitious long-range goals and action agenda: comprehensive professional development, new kinds of assessments, and explicit performance standards. For example, the district's computer-based, diagnostic assessment system is criterion-referenced and coordinated with local standards, year-end accountability tests, and the state's assessment program.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg's Sixth Graders are Expected to Attain the Following Communications Arts Standards:

  • Summarize, analyze, and evaluate various types of literature, both fiction and nonfiction

  • Produce written products in various modes including prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing

  • Explain the language structure and cultural values reflected in modern English

  • Express ideas clearly and effectively in oral contexts and use active listening skills in analyzing and evaluating spoken ideas

  • Use, read, or view media and technology and analyze the content and concepts accurately

  • Demonstrate research and study skills

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[Resources for Developing Challenging State Standards] [Table of Contents] [Discipline-Based Standards]