A Vision For California's Students

Draft Standards From The State of California Academic Standards Commission

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State of California Academic Standards Commission

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Standards are as important in education as they are in all other facets of our lives. When academic standards are adopted in California, in conjunction with assessments, they will have the power to transform schooling. By themselves, academic standards are not a cure-all, but setting them is the crucial first step.

New, High Standards for All Students

For these reasons, the Commission for the Establishment of Academic Content and Performance Standards was created. Its responsibility is to develop, for the first time in California, world-class academic content and performance standards for all students, in all grades, K-12. The draft content standards contained in this document represent the first fruits of its difficult and important work to date. These reading & writing and mathematics standards attempt to define excellence; they challenge all of us to recognize--and nurture--the intellectual potential that all students possess.

At first, achievement of these standards will be a stretch for many students; it's important to remember that these standards are not about where we are, but where we want to--and can--go, if we are determined to expect the best. We've all heard about U.S. results on international assessments, and about California's results in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Sadly, they affirm that we have expected too little of our students for far too long.

Think of a track coach who tells his athletes, "Sure, you can compete in the marathon," but only tells them that in order to train, they should "run." To succeed, the competitors need to know much more than that. They need to know exactly how to prepare themselves physically and mentally for the race. If we do not express specific, rigorous expectations and provide our students with proper training, we do them a disservice--and leave them hopelessly unprepared for the future.

Review and Feedback

Convinced that standards should reflect a broad consensus in an iterative process of drafting, feedback, and revision, the Commission made a commitment to engage public review right from the start by opening its work sessions to the public. Many people who have attended our meetings have responded with specific and useful comments. Others have sent in detailed reviews. Still others have accessed early drafts through the Internet. Professionals from the California Department of Education have spent countless hours reviewing the successive drafts and making cogent suggestions.

Public hearings are the next step; and in the coming months, the Commission will circulate this and successive drafts widely for comment. The Commission will ask professional associations representing a wide range of interests in education, subject experts in mathematics and English language arts, experienced teachers, parents, business and industry groups, and university representatives to review and discuss the drafts in detail. Varied perspectives will help ensure a richer product. The Commission will consider carefully every comment it receives. It is no understatement to say that these draft documents are works in progress.

Process of Development

Building an "ideal" set of standards in reading & writing and mathematics has meant analyzing and drawing upon the best components from solid standards that have been tested in the field. No single standard model would do. The draft standards in this publication are borne of standards models from California, including the Education Round Table Standards for High School Graduates and Challenge District Standards; state standards from Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia, and Washington; local standards from Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina and Chicago; other standards models such as Core Knowledge, the International Baccalaureate Program, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and New Standards; and international models from Hungary, Japan, and Singapore. As the Commission moves forward, it will continue to benchmark its documents against these and still other state and international models to ensure that California's model is the best of the best.

Format and Organization

We've organized the draft standards in two ways to provide readers with different format possibilities. The reading & writing standards are laid out by "strands" (reading, writing, listening & speaking, conventions), offering a visual aid for how the standards progress across grades. The mathematics standards are laid out "grade by grade," with the strands embedded within each grade level. In both content areas, however, "overarching statements" that increase in complexity from Kindergarten to grade 12 help to hold the discrete skills and concepts together in a cohesive whole. You'll see that the standards are numbered in the same way. In their final versions, the documents will be aligned in format. We're interested in hearing from you about which format you prefer.

Both models attempt to show a clear progression of competencies and skills from Kindergarten through twelfth grade without unnecessary repetition, avoiding a "mile wide and inch deep" curriculum. In this way, California's standards may well set a new standard for the rest of the nation.

Four Issues Deserve Clarification:

First, as students move on to higher grade levels, the concepts mastered at previous levels are to be considered embedded in the students' comprehensive knowledge base. (The standards are statements of when students have mastered the material, not necessarily when the knowledge and skills are first introduced.)

Second, the Commission understands that setting standards in different content areas does not imply that knowledge and understanding can be sliced into tidy categories. Learning is far more complex than that. Obvious connections exist among disciplines -- real problems and decisions usually involve more than one discipline. The same caution applies to interpreting the academic standards within a single content area. The Commission will bear this in mind, both as it refines these standards and as it develops standards in the other two core content areas, science and history/social science.

Third, the draft academic standards define a core of essential knowledge and skills, but do not limit or dictate school strategies for ensuring students achieve them. The "how-to" is left to the province of the professionals in the classrooms.

Fourth, the Commission recognizes that many important implementation questions follow in its wake: changes to the curriculum, assessments, teacher preparation and evaluation, instructional materials, and the public's understanding of student expectations. As we anticipate the effect that standards will have on improving our schools, we will share our insights and recommendations. Still, the Commission's proper work is to lay the cornerstone for those crucial implements by creating the best set of standards it can.

Conclusion

Before the standards are presented to the State Board of Education in October, the Commission will also have developed performance standards for reading & writing and mathematics. Developing descriptions of the essential knowledge and skills that we want students to learn takes hard work. Together, we should be prepared for a number of rounds -- an evolution of revision and refinement.

The demanding process is worth every ounce of effort. Once California has a final set of standards, teachers, parents, taxpayers and the students themselves will all know what students are expected to know and be able to do. We'll have a written record of what's expected, and we'll be able to assess the progress of students and schools. We'll also have a shared base of knowledge and skills. Most importantly, all youngsters, regardless of economic background -- with or without expressed college aspirations -- will be studying a challenging curriculum designed to prepare them for the rigors of the next century, and the joys of intellectual confidence.

Credits

The Draft Standards were prepared by:

The State of California Academic Standards Commission
The Commission for the Establishment of Academic Content and Performance Standards Comments may be addressed to The Commission