Parents can use them to understand what their child needs to learn and think about how they can support learning at home. Teachers can use them as a guide in the classroom, and to clarify what a student has learned in the past and what they need to get ready for in future years. Business and community leaders, and the broader community can use them to understand what students need to know and be able to do in this day and age, and think about their role in supporting through jobs, partnerships, and citizenship. School administrators and governing groups need to see how standards can define the work of a school, and use them to clarify how money and time are spent, and how to focus priorities at a school. And district and state administrators can use them to understand what sort of support school communities need.
Standards can bring focus and organization.
They do not need to force everyone to teach or learn the same thing on the same day at every school. Instead, by making what students should know and do clear, they can give support and freedom to teachers to find a range of ways to teach those things in a way that makes sense for their students. Curriculum A curriculum, a course of study developed by individual teachers, schools, and districts, brings those standards to life. They show how to take standards and bring them to life in the classroom, one grade at a time. This can help an individual teacher make sense of how the standards play out across the year.