A. Let's boil this down to the essentials. A well-defined goal. The schools in Jefferson County have developed a list of these standards in every subject, and teachers are supposed to use them to make decisions about what to teach. A. Teachers have used curriculum guides and similar documents in the past to help decide what to teach. Or they've depended on textbooks-beginning on page one and going as far as they can during the school year.
Standards are a little different.
Q. I still don't get the difference. Here's a social studies example. The teacher is expected to teach kids about ancient civilizations. That's a big topic, with an almost endless array of facts, bits of folklore, customs, etc. A. Ask yourself why schools seem to have such a hard time teaching the basics.