What are Standards?

When you hear teachers or report cards say a student is "meeting standards," here's what that really means:

Standards are statewide learning goals for what students should know and be able to do by the end of each grade. They don't tell teachers how to teach, but they set the goalpost for the end of the year. The curriculum is the roadmap to get there.

Here are two examples for our state:

• 3rd Grade Reading: Students should be able to ask and answer questions using details from a text to show they understood it.

• 5th Grade Math: Students should understand place value -- for example, that the "4" in 3.47 represents 4 tenths, while the "7" represents 7 hundredths.

Teachers check progress throughout the year with "benchmarks" and other assessments to make sure their students are on track to meet these standards by the end of the school year. So, when your child's teacher says they are meeting standards, it means they're on track with these grade-level goals. If they're approaching or exceeding, that shows whether they're still building up to the goal or working beyond it.

The Board of Education approves curriculum to make sure it aligns with the state's standards and serves the needs of our students.

Next I'll talk about how assessments fit into this picture. They're the tools we use to see how students are progressing towards standards.