State policy on standards
The State Board of Education believes that all the California academic content standards are essential for students. However, in spite of the importance of all standards, not all standards are equal. Some need considerable coverage, and some are relatively easy to cover in a short amount of time. Key standards are noted in the mathematics and the visual and performing arts. Doug Reeves first coined the term power standards to indicate the major or higher-order standards. Districts have the prerogative to identify power standards to cover in a year.
Many practitioners believe that focusing on fewer standards allows for deeper learning. Robert Marzano and Mike Schmoker join Reeves and other researchers who advocate power standards. In international comparisons, the highest-scoring countries attempt to teach less than a third as many topics as those found in U.S. textbooks. “’Narrowing the curriculum,’ when done right, is not just permissible but essential.”1
The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) (Outside Source) emphasizes the importance of teaching to develop deep understanding, implying a need to focus on power standards. One of the ten CES Common Principles (Outside Source) focuses on:
Less is more, depth over coverage. The school's goals should be simple: that each student at a minimum master a number of essential skills and areas of knowledge. While these skills and areas will, to varying degrees, reflect the traditional academic disciplines, the program's design should be shaped by the intellectual and imaginative powers and competencies that the students need, rather than by subjects as conventionally defined. The aphorism “less is more” suggests that curricular decisions should be guided by the aim of thorough student mastery and achievement rather than by an effort to merely cover content.2
Some districts and teachers identify power standards as those most likely to be covered on the California Standards Tests (CST). However, the danger in focusing instruction solely on CST-related power standards is that middle school students need all the standards in order to be well prepared for high school and beyond.
There are strong arguments for both teaching all standards and for focusing on power standards. Each district will need to grapple with whether to teach all the standards or to concentrate on power standards and then be guided by outcomes along the way. The following arguments should be considered when districts focus on power standards (i.e., those most likely to be on state tests):
- Oral language and mental computation: The CSTs do not test students on the standards for either oral language or for mental computation, yet both speaking and mental computation skills are essential for success in school and in life.
- Writing: The writing standards for middle school are significant. To become truly proficient at writing at this grade level, students need considerable practice writing in different genres and receiving timely feedback from their teachers. Then students can revise, redo, and transfer newly acquired knowledge and skills to the next assignment. The CST in seventh grade contains a writing portion. However, the writing score is only a small portion of the total English language arts score. Teachers are tempted to gloss over teaching writing skills and focus on other standards in hopes that students’ scores will be boosted on the test. This focus on test results handicaps students who need writing skills to pass the California High School Exit Examination and prepare for high school, college, and career.
- Alternating questions: The Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program alternates test questions yearly to cover all assessable standards over time. As a result, teachers cannot skip teaching a standard one year without handicapping students in their overall preparation for high school.
Local options related to the standards
By statute, school districts have the prerogative to exert local control in determining the scope and sequence of the curriculum based on the grade-level standards and adopted texts. In addition, districts may adopt their own standards as long as they are as rigorous as the state standards. Also, districts find it useful to create their own curriculum guidelines and, in some cases, their own instructional materials.
When developing their curriculum and instruction pacing guides, some districts and schools identify power standards. The term power standards became popular due to the work of educational researchers, such as Doug Reeves, Robert Marzano, and Mike Schmoker, who refer to power standards as “the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that have endurance, leverage, and are essential in preparing students for readiness at the next level; the most essential learning or outcomes.”3
As noted above, both the Mathematics Framework and the Visual and Performing Arts Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve (PDF; 3 MB. 294pp.) identify key standards4, and the Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve (PDF; 7MB; 386pp.) refers to key concepts to identify those standards that students must master to move on to the next grade level.5 However, key standards and key concepts are not the same as power standards.
Previous
Performance levels
Next
Educating students and parent/guardians about standards
Footnotes
1Mike Schmoker, Results Now: How We Can Achieve Unprecedented Improvements in Teaching and Learning. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006, 40.
2The CES Common Principles (Outside Source) Coalition of Essential Schools.
3DuFour et al. Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work. Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree, 2006, 217.
4Mathematics Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve 2005 Sacramento: California Department of Education, 2006, 17.
5Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve (PDF; 7MB; 370pp.). Sacramento: California Department of Education, 2007, 67, 165, 263, 267, and 317.
Back to top