excerpted from:
Improving America's Schools: 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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