Educational Standards and
Curriculum Frameworks for

Family and Consumer Sciences


Developing Educational Standards is an annotated list of Internet sites with K-12 educational standards and curriculum frameworks documents, maintained by Charles Hill and the Putnam Valley Schools in New York. Your help with updates or corrections is greatly appreciated. [This page was last updated on July 19, 2000.] -> Return to the Standards index page.

By Organization


• US Department of Education
  The US Department of Education has its own search site that allows you to search the department, any of its agency web sites (NCES, for example), or a Cross-Site index page that can access some 150 DOE-connected sites. It also maintains a searchable set of research summaries of ERIC Digests from 1992 to the present. Typing in the word "standards" turns up documents about such topics as social studies, the public perception of standards, and standardized tests.
  
  
• National Education Goals Panel
  The National Education Goals Panel was set up to monitor progress towards Goals 2000 and to "assess and report state and national progress toward achieving the National Education Goals." From this site you can examine the eight national education goals set up by Congress and state governors, review national and state "scorecards" for 1998 and 1999 that provide data for 34 different progress indicators, and compare the results for up to three states at a time. The site also has a publications page with free ordering instructions and download links for quite a few documents. [Thanks to Kirk Winters of the USDOE for keeping people informed about this and other DOE-related programs via his regular mailings.)
  
  
• Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL)
  The Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory is one of the best places to go on the net for educational resources, particularly in the area of standards and frameworks. (Thanks go to Therese Sarah, formerly of McREL, for keeping me updated.) Some of its best offerings include:
  
  • Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education, by John S. Kendall and Robert J. Marzano. It collates and annotates standards projects from throughout the country in each of 14 content areas.
  • Eight Questions You Should Ask Before Implementing Standards-Based Education at the Local Level, by Robert J. Marzano. It lays out options and makes helpful recommendations about everything from what standards schools should draw on (state, national, other) to methods of evaluation.
  • Designing a Sustainable Standards-based Assessment System, by Don Burger.
  • The Eisenhower High Plains Consortium for Mathematics and Science has a Summary of Analyzed State Curriculum Frameworks - an analysis of math and science frameworks from 33 states.
  
  
  
• National Coalition for Family and Consumer Sciences Education
  The National Coalition for Family and Consumer Sciences Education has developed sixteen National Standards covering such topics as the family, foods, and human development. Each standard also has several general performance indicators along with it. A note at the bottom of the page asks you to send email for more information or related materials. (Thanks to Barbara Woods, President of the National Association of State Administrators for Family and Consumer Sciences for information about this link.]
  
  
• National Council on Economic Education
  The National Council on Economic Education maintains an Economics America site and has helped issue a set of Voluntary National Content Standards for Economic Education. This contains 20 content standards, a supplementary handbook, various online lesson plans, and ordering information for the whole document. Covering grades three through twelve, the online lessons can be searched by standard, title, grade, or concept. Each lesson is fully described and is linked back to one of the economic standards.
  
  

By State


• California
  The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing offers a wealth of information about teacher certification requirements and procedures. Its section on Standards for Educator Preparation and Competence includes links to teaching credential standards in general and to specific subject area and specialist standards. (Thanks to Bob Salley of CTC for this information.)
  
  
• California
  The California Instructional Technology Clearinghouse maintains an impressive and comprehensive databaseof more than 3700 instructional materials linked to state standards and curriculum frameworks. You can search the database by keyword, subject, platorm, or grade level - or dig down into the areas of ELA, math, science, or social studies and do a search on individual standards. The results generally lead you to highly rated software titles (the rating criteria are described on the web site). (Thanks to Laurie Swiryn of Cuesta Technologies for information about this link.)
  
  
• Indiana
  The Indiana Department of Education's section on Indiana Academic Standards offers a number of documents and instructrional resources. Major ones include:Indiana Academic Standards 1999 (Adobe Acrobat copies of grade level booklets for parents about ELA and math standards, specific high school math courses, and answers to sample math standards assessment questions); Science - Standards 2000 draft (background information, a review form for reader comments, and Adobe Acrobat copies of grade level guides); Math draft - Standards 2000 draft (Adobe Acrobat copies of grade level guides); and English/Language Arts - Adopted June 2000 (Adobe Acrobat copies of grade level guides).
  
  An additional resource, the Electronic Library, has links to other proficiency guides (generally course descriptions and content standards) for the Arts (published in 2000, separate drafts for visual arts and music); Business Technology Education (1999); Family and Consumer Sciences (1998); Foreign Languages (1999, draft); Health Education (1998); Physical Education (1998, draft); Social Studies Proficiency Guide (1997).(Thanks to Therese Sarah for this information.)
  
  
• Kentucky
  The education department's Core Content for Assessment site contains several documents each for reading, writing, math, science, social studies, arts and humanities, and vocational studies. These September 1999 "core content" documents contain descriptions of knowledge in each subject area that is so central to the state's vision of education that questions about that knowledge will be included on the state's tests. (In that sense, the core content represents a narrower vision of learning standards than is found in the state's frameworks. ) A second, "crosswalk" document, compares versions 1 and 3 of the core content. [Thanks to Greg Wiseman, of Foley Middle School in Berea, Kentucky, for letting me know this was on line.]
  
  
• Massachusetts
  The Massachusetts frameworks fit within a five year master plan for the state's Education Reform Initiatives. A Common Core of Learning page provides some background for the state's changes while a Curriculum Frameworks page offers links to some Common Chapters (containing a rationale and general information about the meaning and nature of frameworks) as well as to documents for the arts, English language arts, health, math, science and technology, history and social science, and world languages. (According to a January 1996 memo from the commissioner of education, the health education framework encompasses the curriculum areas of health, family and consumer science, and physical education - with each district being responsible for determining how much attention is to go to each one.) An EDReform section of the DOE site presents similar information in an organized and very useful way - particularly if you are using a frames-capable browser. While there, click on the related documents button for additional information. Meanwhile, the new statewide assessment program is described on a Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System site. It has links to statewide, district, and school level results from the MCAS (including the December 1998 reports) along with a wide range of material that supplements or explains the system.
  
  
• Michigan
  Michigan originally approved a set of Core Curriculum Content Standards in August, 1994 containing content standards and performance benchmarks. During the 1995-96 legislative session, the legislature amended the school code, removing the mandate the districts use the state's standards and replacing it with a requirement that each district implement their own - which could be those from the state. In May 1996, the Michigan Department of Education issued a set of Questions and Answers for the Revised School Code dealing with the many changes coming from the legislature.

  The Michigan Department of Education Curriculum Development Program has the original Model Content Standards for Curriculum in the areas of language arts, math, occupational education, science, social studies, and technology. Each link takes you to a page listing the relevant standards, with each standard having a link to a slightly more elaborate version, broken down by general grade level. The bottom of the page also has links to a vision statement in each curricular area as well as to sample assessment questions. A related site maintained by the Curriculum Development Unit also has links to the frameworks as well as to content specific and assessment resources in most subject areas. Meanwhile, Draft documents in the areas of Arts Education, Career and Employability Skills, English Language Arts, Health Education, Life Management Education, Mathematics, Physical Education, Science, Social Studies, Technology, and World Languages are linked to the department's gopher site. A typical document contains an overview, the standards (with brief sample performance tasks or student expectations for early elementary, later elementary, middle school, and high school years), and cross-references to documents from other disciplines. (The CoreCurriculum Content Standards can also be downloaded as a single, 547k file.) 
  
  

• Minnesota
  Minnesota's Department of Children, Families and Learning maintains an extensive set of pages about its Graduation Standards. The site contains brief explanations for students, parents, teachers, and administrators of the new standards and their associated tests in ten learning areas (reading and listening, writing and speaking, the arts and literature, inquiry, scientific applications, people and cultures, decision making, resource management, and world languages). More extended explanations of these areas appear on a High Standards page. The site also offers sample performance packages (instructional activities tied to particular standards) for selected subjects. It provides a link to Chapter 3501 of the department's rules (which define graduation standards and related requirements). And it offers a Graduation Standard Newsletter with fairly up-to-date information about standards and testing and what they all mean.
  
  
• Nebraska
  The Nebraska Department of Education offers links to an Academic Standards page along with separate links to Adobe Acrobat versions of a Final Report regarding the alignment of certain national tests to the state's content standards. The standards page provides access to web and Adobe Acrobat versions of state standards for reading and writing, math, science, and social studies. A typical document presents an overview, a description of main themes, and sets of standards grouped by grade level (K-1, 2-4, 5-8, and 9-12). The standards page also has links to a definition and rationale statement from the State Board (called "A Special Message About Standards) and to an "Overview of Teacher/Administrator Education and Certification" that links standards and certification together. Finally, various curriculum departments maintain very helpful web sites that contain copies of their standards and frameworks, along with various curriculum resources. These sites include one for Reading and Writing Curriculum and Instruction (Thanks to [email protected] for information about this link), Business Education, Family and Consumer Sciences, Foreign Language, Health, Industrial Technology, Mathematics, Social Studies, Education Technology (which includes separate competencies in technology for educators and students), and the Visual and Performing Arts.
  
  
• New York
  NYCENet, the New York City Educational NETwork has an Educational Resources page containing links to various city frameworks. In general, the links take you to lists of "curriculum frameworks expectations" for elementary, middle, and high school grades. Each "expectation" has a link to a relevant net site and some brief plans about what students should do at that site. This approach looks very helpful for teachers and most of the sites and plans are good, but teachers should explore the sites ahead of time, do their own detailed planning, and read the cautionary notes that accompany some of the site descriptions.
  
  
• New York
  In collaboration with the New York State Education Department, OCM BOCES (the Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES Regional Information Center) maintains a State Learning Standards site that offers quick access to NYS standards, frameworks, and assessment resources for the arts; career development and occupational studies; English language arts; health, physical education, and home economics; math, science, and technology; and social studies. Checking on the Planned Assessment of New York State Standards page on a regular basis may also be a good idea, as the time and grades of their administration still appears open to some changes.
  
  
• New York
  The New York State Education Department has a number of useful pages spread throughout its web site. These include:
  
  • November 1999 links to district and school level results on the state's new high stakes testing program. In this case, the links are for the fourth and eighth grade English language arts and math tests.
  • An EMSC Learning Standards section with links to pages with Adobe Acrobat copies of curriculum standards, frameworks, and resource guides in most subject areas. One of the Acrobat documents is an update on the relationship between the learning standards and the state's new assessment system.
  • The Curriculum/Instruction/Assessment and Regional School/Community Services Division has a site with links to documents about new state tests, the commissioner's teleconference transcripts, explanatory documents in English and Spanish for parents - and more.
  • A Fall 1998 web version of a slide presentation about standards called Overall Strategy for Raising Student Performance.
  • Adobe Acrobat copies of summaries and full-text versions of the new Part 100 Commissioner's Regulations. These regulations form a general link between standards and graduation requirements.
  • Information about the pending Annual Professional Performance Review and Professional Development Plan, that lacks only a September 1999 vote to become a Part 100 mandate. The amendment in effect describes general standards for teacher performance.
  • Results of the new state testing program, with links back to state standards. The Grade 4 ELA page for January 1999 is informative, but huge.
  • A copy of the Board of Regents Task Force on Teaching paper, Teaching to Higher Standards: New York's Commitment.
  • Draft Regulations on the Registration of Teacher Education Programs to Implement New York's Commitment: Teaching to Higher Standards.
  
  
  
• North Carolina
  The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's innovative Curriculum Matrix page shows a list of subjects reading down and various grade levels reading across. Clicking on any intersection takes you to a page with standards and frameworks for that subject and grade - along with links to online resources and relevant publications (the latter are for sale by the department). The department also has pages devoted to assessment and to its new (in 1999) Accountability Standards - statements of what students must do in order to gain promotion from grades 3, 5, 8, and 12.
  
  
• North Dakota
  The VT Programs and Functions portion of the North Dakota State Board for Vocational and Technical Education's web site offers information about courses in the areas of family and consumer sciences, occupational education, and technology education. The information varies from brief course descriptions to lists of expected student outcomes. None of it is particularly extensive.
  
  
• Ohio
  The Department of Education's Ohio Standards page now contains only one link - to an April 1998 document that basically says that the implemenation of state standards is at a political standstill. 
  
  
• Oregon
  The Oregon State Education Department's Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Field Services has an academic standards page with Adobe Acrobat versions of the state K-12 standards and benchmarks for English, math, science, and social studies; a page describing progress toward the development of arts standards; and an Adobe Acrobat file called Teaching and Learning to Standards that contains standards and benchmarks for various subject areas.
  
  
• Pennsylvania
  The Pennsylvania Department of Education offers a Proposed Academic Standards page that provides access to background information about state standards, a comparison of the proposed standards to the ill-fated OBE proposal of several years ago, links to Adobe Acrobat versions of the final standards for language arts and math, and Adobe Acrobat copies of the proposed standards for the environment and ecology, science and technology, economics, and civics and government. Standards in the areas of health, the arts, family and consumer science, career education, world languages, and several of the social studies are apparently still under review and do not appear on the department's web site. Also worth noting, the department has put online the contents of the PSSA Classroom Connections CD that it has been using to train teachers in strategies for aligning instruction with the commonwealth's new standards for writing, reading, and math.
  
  
• Texas
  The Texas Education Agency published final versions of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) in September 1997. Organized into two "clusters," the TEKS contain basic understandings, knowledge and skills expectations, and performance descriptions for each content area. TEKS can be read on screen, searched, or downloaded as Word 6 files. There is a Q&A section of the site that tries to deal with some of the criticisms that have been raised about standards and frameworks throughout the country. The site also offers a very useful TEKS Search page you can use to find any instance of any word or phrase in any TEKS documents. TEKS documets are available for the arts, English language arts, foreign language, health, home economics, math, occupational education (including separate files on agricultural science, business education, career orientation, health science technology, marketing education, trade and industrial education), physical education, science, social studies, Spanish and ESL, and technology. (Thanks to Therese Sarah, formerly of McREL, for some of this update.)
  
  
• Utah
  The Utah Education Network has thestandards for the state's Core Curriculum on line. A Core Curriculum/Course Descriptions page has links to documents for major subject areas, with individual documents for grades K to 6 and documents for the secondary grades that are either grouped by grade or by topic. A typical document describes a course, lists core standards, and briefly describes student objectives that meet each standard. UEN also has a very strong set of links to Internet resources as well as to its own set of lesson plans (including a searchable Curriculum Database). A similar set of core curriculum resources is available from the Utah Department of Education's Curriculum and Instruction Homepage (some of which include links back to UEN's pages). Additional information in the areas of occupational, family and consumer sciences, and technology education appear on the Applied Technology Education page.(Thanks go to Ginny Gale from the UtahLink/Utah Education Network, June Matheson from the Utah State Office of Education, and Virgil Jacobsen from the Alpine School District in American Fork, Utah for UEN updates.)
  
  
• Wisconsin
  The Department of Public Instruction has published copies of the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards on its web site. The standards for language arts, math, science, and social studies can be viewed online. The others must be downloaded as Adobe Acrobat files. A typical document contains the relevant content standards, rationales, specific performance standards for grades 4, 8, and 12, and a sample proficiency standard. A separate page describes the state's Proficiency Standards along with proficiency category information for language arts, math, science, and social studies.
  
  

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