Parents, Business People, and Community Leaders. Standards communicate shared expectations for learning and provide a common language for talking about the processes of learning and teaching. As a result, parents, business people, and community leaders become more effective partners in, and monitors of, young people's education. Standards allow people other than just the students to know and understand good learning and how the students are progressing in their education. Standards are a common reference tool for ensuring that the components of the educational system work together.
Standards make good learning evident from district to district and from school to school.
A Definition of Content Standards and Student Performance Standards Content standards specify the essential knowledge, skills, and habits of mind that should be taught and learned in school. These standards are often set by local, state, and national groups. Essential knowledge includes the most important and enduring ideas, issues, dilemmas, principles, and concepts from the disciplines. For example, each student should be able to Identify major eras in history and analyze periods of transition in the local community, in Vermont, in the United States, and in various locales around the world. Demonstrate an understanding of the nature and function of cells, both as individual entities and as components of larger systems.