Schools & Society

For this essay I will be discussing three standards documents; The Common Core Standards for Mathematics, which is a student curriculum and achievement set of standards, the California Standards for the Teaching Profession, which is a set of professional conduct standards aimed at teachers and lastly, The 21st Century Student Outcomes and Support Systems standards, which are targeted at both students and teachers.

All three of these sets of standards make active claims to be raising the bar for achievement, be it for students or teachers. All three documents seek to fill a void in educational standards by clearly stating what they hope to achieve, why this is necessary and where past standards have come up short. All three documents are specific in nature, striving to lay out objectives as clearly as possible. Additionally, though the three sets of standards address students and teachers, and various subject matter, they all speak of a need for a holistic view. With The Common Core Standards for Mathematics for example, they talk of the interconnected nature of the various areas in math and how knowledge and ability in one area plays into the mastery of other areas. Similarly, both the California Standards for the Teaching Profession and the 21st Century Student Outcomes and Support Systems take a broad view on teacher and student success, looking at the whole picture of what makes a good teacher and what makes a good student. From a purely technical aspect, all three documents are found online in .pdf format, and easily accessible via a .pdf viewer such as Adobe Acrobat.

There are some specific differences between the documents as well. Obviously, the Math standards are specific to student achievement in Math, whereas the California Standards for the Teaching Profession are designed to give goals and guidance for someone in pre-service