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K-12 education content standards in Massachusetts
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This page features the following information about who sets K-12 education content standards in Massachusetts public schools:
- The state entity with the authority to approve K-12 education content standards.
- Whether Massachusetts requires or recommends that local schools or districts follow the K-12 education content standards.
- The statutory or regulatory language in Massachusetts governing the development and application of K-12 education content standards.
Background
State education officials develop content standards in order to facilitate curriculum development for public schools. This section examines the role of content standards in public instruction and the different state approaches that either require or recommend their use in public schools.
What are content standards?
Content standards are educational learning and achievement goals that state education officials either require or recommend that local schools satisfy in K-12 instruction. Content standards are not curriculum but rather aim to guide the development of what state officials view as a robust K-12 curriculum.[1]
The development of K-12 education content standards in public schools varies across the 50 states. State boards of education, state education agency leaders, and local school districts, for example, may play a role in the development and approval of content standards.
Do states recommend or require schools to follow content standards?
State statutes or regulations may require or recommend the use of K-12 education content standards in public instruction.
Some states require local schools to align curriculum with content standards by establishing content standards as a minimum course of study. Such states may also require local schools or districts to adopt content standards as part of their curriculum, or they may require students to demonstrate mastery of content standards through state assessments.
Other states recommend that local schools or districts follow state content standards.
Who sets state K-12 education content standards in Massachusetts?
The following section provides information about the development and application of K-12 education content standards in Massachusetts as of 2022.
The table below identifies the state entity tasked with setting content standards, whether the content standards are recommendations or requirements for local schools, and the governing statute(s). The text of the governing statute(s) is provided below the table.
| Massachusetts K-12 education content standards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Entity | Recommendations or requirements? | Statute or Regulation |
| Commissioner of the Department of Secondary and Elementary Education | Requirements | MA Gen L ch 69 § 1d (2022) |
| “ | The board shall direct the commissioner to institute a process to develop academic standards for the core subjects of mathematics, science and technology, history and social science, English, foreign languages and the arts. The standards shall cover grades kindergarten through twelve and shall clearly set forth the skills, competencies and knowledge expected to be possessed by all students at the conclusion of individual grades or clusters of grades. The standards shall be formulated so as to set high expectations of student performance and to provide clear and specific examples that embody and reflect these high expectations, and shall be constructed with due regard to the work and recommendations of national organizations, to the best of similar efforts in other states, and to the level of skills, competencies and knowledge possessed by typical students in the most educationally advanced nations. The skills, competencies and knowledge set forth in the standards shall be expressed in terms which lend themselves to objective measurement, define the performance outcomes expected of both students directly entering the workforce and of students pursuing higher education, and facilitate comparisons with students of other states and other nations.[2] | ” |
See also
- K-12 education content standards in the states
- Overview of trends in K-12 curricula development
- Use of the term critical race theory (CRT)
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Common Core State Standards Initiative, "What are educational standards?" accessed April 21, 2022
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
