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Standards – The Road Map to Reform
Standards provide guideposts
for academic achievement, clearly telling teachers, students and parents,
and the community where they are going. NCLB requires each state to
establish its own unique set of standards for reading, math and science.
There are
no national standards; each state is expected to design their own standards
and their own tests. As part of the accountability provisions set forth
in the law, NCLB has set the goal of having every child making the grade
on state-defined education standards by the end of the 2013-13 school
year.
- Taxpayer
dollars will only go to states that have standards and expectations
for improving schools or teaching a solid academic curriculum.
- Under
No Child Left Behind states are required to establish their own
annual tests aligned with state standards for grades three through
eight to measure
how successfully students are learning what is expected by the standards.
(Annual Yearly Progress - AYP defined)
Standards help direct schools toward common academic goals and unite the community
for reform and achievement.
- Standards help set a high academic bar for selection
of textbooks, lesson plans and teacher preparation.
- Accountability systems
gather specific, objective data through tests aligned with standards.
This information is used to identify strengths
and weaknesses
in the system.
- They help schools focus resources on the best way to
promote learning and help parents track their child's progress.
The Challenge:
- Each state must demonstrate that it has adopted
challenging academic standards that will be used by the state,
local educational agencies,
and schools to gauge student achievement.
- The same academic standards
must apply to all schools and children in the state.
- Academic standards
must be set for all subjects determined by the state, but must
include mathematics, reading or language arts, and
(beginning
2005-2006) science.
Standards must include:
- Content standards in academic subjects that
specify what children are expected to know and be able to do,
contain coherent and
rigorous content,
and encourage the teaching of advanced skills; and
- student achievement
measures that are aligned to state academic standards and describe
levels of achievement (basic, proficient,
and advanced)
that determine how well children are mastering the material
in the content standards.
For Approved State Accountability Plans
http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/stateplans03/ctcsa.pdf
List of schools in need of improvement.
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Need to know
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