Academic standards are the genome of a 21st century PK-12 education. Turn back the covers on any curriculum today and you will find “standards.” They are the “who says this is the right stuff to teach” credentials of school curriculum. As consumers, we look for credentialing, like the Good Housekeeping Seal or Underwrites Laboratory Approval, that gives us reliance that school curriculum is not something cooked up during the summer by a local committee but is written by experts in the field of PK-12 education.
Although politics has kicked dirt on the Common Core Academic Standards, they remain the best of academic standards available to PK-12 educators. In Wisconsin, the Common Core Standards were adopted as the official academic standards of the Department of Public Instruction in 2010 and are the basis for instruction, assessment and educational accountability.
A genome, even the sound of the word, is scientific. It is the complete set of genes present in a cell or organism. By applying genome to the organism of academic standards, academic standards are the complete set of academic characteristics of a graduate of our PK-12 educational system.
Like the genome encoded on a strand of DNA, the genome of academic standards seems just as mysterious. But, it isn’t. They are clearly written and complete, just in educationese. Educational leaders need to take the time and make the effort to de-mystify the verbiage of academic standards into plain speak. This explanation must include two components – why they are important and how they work. What are academic standards and how does our school use PK-12 academic standards? And, what does proficient performance of each standard mean? The latter is essential, because proficiency or advanced performance indicates the grade level goal which are the code of the genome.
This is what the DPI says about standards. It is a good beginning.
What are academic standards?
Academic standards tell us what students should know and be able to do in the classroom. Wisconsin has standards for 24 separate subjects.
Why are academic standards important?
Standards provide goals for teaching and learning. Standards are clear statements about what students must know and be able to do.
What does an academic standard look like?
Seventh grade mathematics: solve real-life and mathematical problems involving angle measure, area, surface area, and volume.
How do standards differ from curriculum?
While standards provide the goals for learning, curriculum is the day to day activity that helps a student meet those goals. Curriculum, which should be thought of as the student’s overall classroom experience, is affected by lesson plans, classroom assessments, textbooks, and more. In Wisconsin, curriculum is developed and approved by local school boards to meet their local needs.
https://dpi.wi.gov/families-students/student-success/standards
This explanation should be repeated to students and parents frequently, so that children and their moms and dads clearly understand that “standards-based” means “these are statements of what each child should know and be able to do and all of our assessments will focus on helping everyone understand how well children know and can perform these.” And, because the standards build upon each successive grade level and course, students and parents need to know that Algebra and Geometry, for example, are introduced in elementary school arithmetic and are developed through middle school and applied and expanded in higher mathematics courses in high school. Like the DNA genome, the genome of academic standards winds through the school organism across many years of student learning.
This explanation may sound or read like, “This year our first grade math students will begin to use mathematical operations and algebraic thinking. Yes, Algebra in first grade. These are the operations and algebraic thinking standards and a description of what your child will know and be able to do as a result of our first grade math instruction.
Standard: Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.
Performance:
- Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.
- Solve word problems that call for addition of three whole numbers whose sum is less than or equal to 20, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.
Standard: Understand and apply properties of operations and the relationship between addition and subtraction.
Performance:
- Apply properties of operations as strategies to add and subtract.3 Examples: If 8 + 3 = 11 is known, then 3 + 8 = 11 is also known. (Commutative property of addition.) To add 2 + 6 + 4, the second two numbers can be added to make a ten, so 2 + 6 + 4 = 2 + 10 = 12. (Associative property of addition.)
- Understand subtraction as an unknown-addend problem. For example, subtract 10 – 8 by finding the number that makes 10 when added to 8.
Standard: Add and subtract within 20.
Performance:
- Relate counting to addition and subtraction (e.g., by counting on 2 to add 2).
- Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use strategies such as counting on; making ten (e.g., 8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4 = 10 + 4 = 14); decomposing a number leading to a ten (e.g., 13 – 4 = 13 – 3 – 1 = 10 – 1 = 9); using the relationship between addition and subtraction (e.g., knowing that 8 + 4 = 12, one knows 12 – 8 = 4); and creating equivalent but easier or known sums (e.g., adding 6 + 7 by creating the known equivalent 6 + 6 + 1 = 12 + 1 = 13).
Standard: Work with addition and subtraction equations.
Performance:
- Understand the meaning of the equal sign, and determine if equations involving addition and subtraction are true or false. For example, which of the following equations are true and which are false? 6 = 6, 7 = 8 – 1, 5 + 2 = 2 + 5, 4 + 1 = 5 + 2.
- Determine the unknown whole number in an addition or subtraction equation relating three whole numbers. For example, determine the unknown number that makes the equation true in each of the equations 8 + ? = 11, 5 = � – 3, 6 + 6 = �.
This standard is just one of many in first grade mathematics instruction. As your child tells you ‘This is what we learned in math today,’ please keep these standards in mind. When your child enters second grade, the next instructional year will add to and expand these first grade standards.”
As an extension, good practice would also help children and parents to connect standards to periodic classroom tests and assessments. Just adding a standards statement to the top of the test page indicates the alignment of preceding instruction and the assessment to a particular academic standard.
The reason for this time and effort points directly to the accountability that school leaders and teachers have for causing all children to learn and proficiently perform grade level academic standards. Each first grade child who successfully knows and can perform the operations and algebraic thinking standard given in this example will be ready for instruction in second grade operations and algebraic thinking.
And, here is the rub. Every child who does not successfully know and can not perform the elementary and/or middle school grade level math standards at the appropriate grade level proficiency level begins a parade of successive years of incomplete learning in math. It is no wonder that high school Algebra is “the wall” for so many students, the course where the annual standards of algebraic thinking in elementary and middle school coalesce into a single math course. Children who have successfully learned and performed their elementary and middle school math standards are ready and prepared for high school Algebra. Children who did not are severely challenged in Algebra and all subsequent math courses.
The mutual responsibility that school leaders, teachers and parents have for student learning can be made easier when annual academic standards are explained, distributed across the year of their instruction, and clearly aligned with grade level instruction and assessments. When we know what we are supposed to do, the doing is made easier.
The genome of academic standards is a road map that is designed not only for instruction, but to aid school leaders and parents to assure that each child successfully learns what they are to know and be able to do each school year. It is our road map and needs to be closely followed.