Our Philosophy on Standards

To create a world-class education system, DoDEA has developed rigorous and demanding curriculum standards. The curriculum standards specify what students should know and be able to do. DoDEA curriculum standards are based on the content standards produced by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Council of Teachers of English/the International Reading Association, the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards and the National Council for Teachers of Social Studies.

Standards are important because they set high levels of learning and performance for all students. The standards also serve as a basis for assessment across the curriculum. They focus on what is important in each curriculum area.

Certain components enable standards-based reforms to work, for students and teachers. At QMHS, standards are articulated in ways that make them accessible to students, teachers, and parents; teachers have opportunities for targeted, high-quality professional development; performance standards based on higher content are integrated into classroom planning and routines, the reforms reach students.

We all know this kind of approach does work. Overall student performance is consistent. Students learn as well as they might, and we have a high level of assurance that all children are getting their rightful opportunities to learn. Standards alone cannot change these realities. Instead, successful change occurs when all aspects of the local curriculum are linked to standards through a purposeful, coherent system of processes and products.

DoDEA Performance standards will:

· Provide academic standards that will challenge all students, including gifted, special needs and ESL to work harder at higher academic levels

· Bring greater focus on the most important concepts that teachers need to teach and students need to know

· Bring together what is taught (curriculum) how it is taught (instruction) and a measure of what students have learned (assessment)

What are the benefits for students?

· Students will become more skillful in problem solving, discussion, and inquiry, and will use multiple ways to show their understanding and skill.

· Students will be able to evaluate their performance based on common standards and will understand the learning of specific expectations for mathematics and English language arts.
· QMHS will provide students with more opportunities to practice skills and learn concepts so that all students will achieve the high standards set for all.

"Getting kids to meet high standards will require a kind of motivation which has to be acquired and practiced-acquired not by moving through chapters and units, but by developing performances of understanding through a science inquiry, a major piece of research, a mathematical puzzle. Students need to be given the opportunity to discuss their work, to evaluate, to get feedback on it, and to try it again."