Tennessee and National Standards
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Proof Points…In the early to mid nineteen nineties, national professional organizations in all the major content areas such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Council of Teachers of English, and others prepared highly crafted statements about what all students need to know or be able to do at the end of their K-12 education. Fine grained educational benchmarks for particular grade clusters were established. Later, state education agencies wrote their own curriculum standards that generally mirrored national standards but included modifications to address unique concerns. For example, historical events or geological conditions special to a particular state might receive greater emphasis in these documents. Some local communities adopted their own set of standards.A basic tenet of the standards reform movement was that following their adoption, all students would be provided with classroom instruction, curriculum materials, and assessments that were directly aligned with the promulgated standards. Within a reasonable period of time, standards-based, standardized testing programs would be instituted. This comprehensive effort was designed to improve student performance by raising student and teacher accountability. Future generations of educators will ultimately assess the ultimate impact of reform efforts that occurred during the past twenty years. For now, the responsibility of the classroom teacher is to implement a curriculum that properly prepares students to meet the rigorous demands of the standards to which they and their students are held accountable. An essential precursor for meeting this responsibility is for teachers to thoroughly immerse themselves in the study of state and national standards documents. Standards Tools can help teachers develop a better grasp of what is expected of them and their students. The Way it Works…Fortunately, many of the National Standards documents for Science and Mathematics are available online. Teachers will find that these outstanding resoures offer a wealth of research-backed information on curriculum, assessment, and student learning.The Standards area also includes time-saving WebLinks to locations where the most up-to-date versions of every state's standards can be accessed. Searching through All State Standards enables an opportunistic teacher to gain a 50-state perspective of the standards movement and take advantage of resources that may be available at these web sites. |
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