PURPOSE
The Learning Results identify the knowledge and skills essential to prepare Maine
students for work, for higher education, for citizenship, and
for personal fulfillment. Strongly supported by the public, the
Learning Results are built on the premises that:
The Learning Results express what students should know and be able to do at various checkpoints during their education. The Learning Results serve to focus discussion and to develop consensus on common
goals for Maine education. In identifying essential knowledge
and skills to be achieved by Maine students, the Learning Results do not represent a curriculum nor do they reduce the school's
responsibility for curriculum planning or determining instructional
approaches. In fact, the Learning Results challenge communities, schools and teachers to work together
in implementing effective instructional strategies to achieve
high expectations for all students.
This document defines only the core elements of education that
should apply to all students without regard to their specific
career and academic plans. Every student is expected to achieve
goals that are broader than those outlined by the Learning Results. At the high school level, for instance, many students heading
directly to post-secondary study or to the workplace may require
learning experiences that exceed the Learning Results in specific content areas.
The overriding purpose of the Learning Results is to provide teachers and parents with guidance to improve an
existing education system that is already working well for many
students in most Maine communities. The adoption of common standards
and an accompanying mix of measures which assess learning is widely
regarded as the most important next step in improving the quality
of public education for all students.
BACKGROUND
Following enactment of the Education Reform Act of 1984, Maine
schools undertook a wide variety of initiatives designed to improve
the quality of teaching and learning. Many of the lessons learned
from those initiatives informed Maine's Common Core of Learning, a document published in 1990 that articulates a common vision
for education in Maine by defining the knowledge, skills, and
attitudes that all students should possess upon graduation from
high school. In 1993, the Legislature directed the State Board
of Education to undertake the next step in education reform by
establishing a Task Force on Learning Results that was directed to:
"develop long-range education goals and standards for school performance
and student performance to improve learning results and recommend
to the commissioner and to the Legislature a plan for achieving
those goals and standards."
After substantial work, the Task Force presented to the Legislature,
in January of 1996, a report which contained a series of recommendations
together with a set of standards, a plan for implementation, and
proposed legislation. After a series of intense hearings during
the 1996 Legislative Session, the Legislature adopted much of
the work of the Task Force and directed the Department of Education
and the State Board of Education to continue to develop the Learning Results.
Acting on the recommendations of the Task Force, the Legislature adopted six Guiding Principles which describe the characteristics of a well-educated person. To fulfill these principles, the Legislature required that the Department of Education and the State Board of Education develop Learning Results within the following eight areas:
Career Preparation
English Language Arts
Health and Physical Education
Mathematics
Modern and Classical Languages
Science and Technology
Social Studies
Visual and Performing Arts
These are not "subjects" in the same sense that we use the word
when referring to courses in school. They are areas of learning
that will in some cases cut across a number of discrete courses
or disciplines.
In response to the legislative directive, the Commissioner appointed
a working group, known as the Critical Review Committee, to prepare
a draft of standards for consideration by the State Board of Education
and by the Legislature. The Committee met on numerous occasions
during the summer and fall of 1996 to produce this revised document,
which was approved in May of 1997 by the 118th Legislature.
STRUCTURE
As a structure for Learning Results, each subject area has been divided into Content Standards which are broad descriptions of the knowledge and skills that
students should acquire. Within each content standard is a series
of Performance Indicators which help to define in more specific terms the stages of achievement,
or checkpoints, toward meeting the content standard within each
of four grade spans:
pre-school to second grade (Pre-K-2);
third and fourth grades (3-4);
fifth through eighth grades (5-8); and
secondary school.
Performance indicators describe what students should know and be able to do from one level to the next to demonstrate attainment of a content standard. Good performance indicators are those that:
focus on academics and are grounded in important content;
combine both knowledge and skills;
describe development in a concrete way from one stage to the next;
define results and not methods of teaching;
are clear and useful to parents, teachers, and students; and
can be assessed, tested, and measured in a variety of ways.
Broadly defined content standards are lettered, labeled, and described
in the introduction to each area of learning. Under each content
standard, the specific performance indicators are given numbers
merely to identify them and not to imply an order of significance.
Examples are given after some of the indicators to clarify what the indicator
means and how it might be addressed in the classroom. Examples are not part of the indicator or the content standard; they merely
illustrate the standard by suggesting what a student might do
as one step toward attainment. Please note that the examples may
not demonstrate how learning can and should be integrated across
content areas.
INTEGRATED LEARNING
While the division of learning into content areas is necessary
to form a structure for writing performance standards, this does
not mean that teaching should be divided in any similar way. In
many schools, both learning and assessment are often successfully
integrated across several content areas at one time. For example,
a science project may include historical research, data collection
and mathematical analysis, followed by preparation of a narrative
report with freehand illustrations, and conclude with a computer-assisted
oral presentation to the class, thus combining, in this example,
elements from at least five content areas into one project.
Teachers are encouraged to approach the standards from an interdisciplinary
perspective when designing curriculum and planning instructional
activities.
Maine's Common Core of Learning articulated knowledge, skills, and attitudes in a non-disciplinary
organization that is helpful when thinking about integrated teaching
and learning. The four interdisciplinary areas identified in the
Common Core are as follows:
Personal and Global Stewardship
Responsible citizenship requires awareness and a concern for oneself,
others, and the environment. It involves interactions not only
within the self and family, but between the self and friends,
the community, the nation, and the world. It includes the knowledge
and care of all dimensions of our selves as humans, an understanding
of the group process, and a willingness to exercise the rights
and responsibilities of citizenship. Stewardship also includes
the study of current geography and foreign language and an appreciation
of pluralism and human rights.
Communication
The ability of human beings to communicate through a variety of
media with a high degree of specificity is one of our most remarkable
achievements. In a rapidly-changing world, communications skills
will become ever more essential to our students' future success.
Reasoning and Problem Solving
Knowledge is power. We must help students want to gain knowledge,
show them how to get it, and encourage them to use it to reach
a new understanding or to create a new product. We must help students
learn to reflect on their processes of learning, regardless of
their field of study.
The Human Record
The study of the human record not only includes the actions and
events of the past but also the constructs of human thought and
creativity as they have evolved through time. The human record
includes works of literature and the arts; scientific laws and
theories; and concepts of government, economic systems, philosophy,
and mathematics. In fact, much of what we now think of as "subject
matter" in today's curriculum belongs in this section.
CONTENT AND CRITICAL THINKING
Wherever education is publicly discussed, there is much debate
over the balance between student acquisition of factual knowledge
and critical thinking skills.
This debate is embraced, but not resolved by the Learning Results. The truth is that both content and thinking processes are important.
Students need a common factual frame of reference grounded in
the events of history, the structure of geography, the discoveries
of science, and the richness of art, music, and literature; and
they must also learn how to think, how to search and investigate,
and how to evaluate, filter, and process the information that
they uncover. All students need to learn, at least at some level,
how to investigate like a scientist, evaluate like an historian,
reason like a mathematician, and communicate like a writer and
an artist.
Across the content areas of the Learning Results the higher order reasoning and thinking skills are often embedded
within the language chosen for the performance indicator. For
example, in Social Studies, students are often challenged to "evaluate,"
"analyze," and "explain," as much as to "identify," "recognize,"
or "describe" the content included within the standard.
RESULTS AND METHODS
In Maine and throughout the United States, there is controversy
over the means and methods by which children are taught. In reading,
there is the familiar debate over the merits of phonics versus
whole language instruction. In mathematics, there is concern whether
it is appropriate to de-emphasize mental computing skills that
can now be performed using a pocket calculator, and in some communities
parents are distressed by an apparent lack of structure or formality
within certain classrooms.
It is not the place of this document to address methods of teaching
or the organization of the classroom. Rather, this document focuses
on results - not the means or methods by which students are taught.
Some teachers prefer a structured classroom while others use a
less formal setting. Further, it is not the place of this document
to specify how many students should be in a classroom, what level
of formality should prevail, or what instructional methods are
most appropriate. These are matters for teachers, parents, and
local administrators to resolve.
However, the state does have an obligation to monitor the results
of student learning within our communities. That is the role of
the state as dictated by the Maine Constitution.
FOR ALL STUDENTS
One of the most commonly asked questions regarding the Learning Results is whether they apply to all students. These standards establish
goals for what all students should know and be able to do, including students with unique learning needs and/or identified
disabilities.
In order for all students to have appropriate opportunities to
move toward achievement of the Learning Results and demonstrate mastery as they progress, schools will continue
to design curriculum, instruction, and assessment opportunities
that meet the needs of a diverse student population. A comprehensive,
personalized planning approach will be helpful in this effort
to identify and meet the unique needs of individual students.
Currently, students with identified disabilities have rights under federal and state special education laws - this does not change with the adoption of the Learning Results. A continuum of services and appropriate adaptations and
modifications will still be available to students.
ASSESSMENT
These Learning Results are just one part of an educational system. As goals for what
all students should know and be able to do upon finishing school,
they are not written to prescribe a minimum or "passing" standard.
The setting of minimum requirements is the function of assessments
that are separate from the creation of academic goals.
Because some students are ready for assessment at earlier stages
than others, no assumption is made about when a standard might
be achieved.
The statute passed in April of 1996 includes the following provisions
relating to assessment:
Student achievement of the learning results . . . must be measured by a combination of state and local assessments to measure progress and ensure accountability. The 4th-grade, 8th-grade, and 11th-grade results of the Maine Education Assessment, the "MEA," are the state assessments used to measure achievement of the learning results. The 4th-grade and 8th-grade MEA must be used to measure achievement of the learning results beginning in the 1998-99 school year. The 11th-grade MEA must be used to measure achievement of the learning results beginning in the 1999-2000 school year. Local school administrative units may develop additional assessments to measure achievement of the learning results, including student portfolios, performances, demonstrations and other records of achievements.
An Assessment Design Team comprised of Maine educators and assessment
specialists has been established to redesign state level assessments
and to assist in development of high quality local assessments
that will be used to measure student achievement of the Learning Results. The statewide assessment system they are developing will:
align with Maine's Learning Results;
utilize multiple measures of learning;
ensure fair and equitable assessment for all students;
utilize recognized, relevant technical standards for assessment;
provide understandable information to educators, parents, students, the public, and the media;
provide professional development opportunities for teachers, administrators, and future educators; and
be practical and manageable.
IMPLEMENTATION AND RESOURCES
Implementation of Learning Results is a local function. The Learning Results does not identify the resources, the methods, the relationships,
and the concerns that need to be addressed to enable all students
to achieve these standards. Schools and communities will establish
their own unique approach to such issues as school organization
and climate, innovative instruction and assessment, the fostering
of higher order thinking skills, professional development, differences
in student needs and learning styles, use of emerging technologies,
and collaboration among participating groups and individuals.
Learning Results are not a curriculum. A full curriculum contains the detail about
what students should know and be able to do within each area of
learning at every grade level. It often prescribes materials and
methods, contains reading lists and texts, while specifying course
content and instructional sequence. The Learning Results describe a new literacy for all students in terms of knowledge
and skills which schools may use in forming local curricula and
designing assessment.
Aware that meeting the standards is neither easy nor without expense,
the Legislature has stated that implementation is conditioned
on added state funding for professional development. Further,
districts may delay meeting the standards for career preparation,
modern and classical languages, and visual and performing arts
if they cannot be achieved within existing local resources.
REVISION
This document was initially revised during the summer of 1996
by the Critical Review Committee. 3000 copies were circulated
to schools primarily for peer review by educators. Over 2000 educators
answered questionnaires and offered suggestions for further revision.
Based on those responses, the Learning Results were modified and broadly distributed to the public for hearings
and formal reviews conducted jointly by the Department of Education
and the State Board of Education during early 1997. The revision
that finally resulted from that rule-making process was then presented
to the Legislature for its review and approval, which, as mentioned
previously, was granted in May of 1997.
Be advised that this is not a static or finished document, but
rather a dynamic one designed to stimulate continuing discussion.
The Learning Results will need to be revised periodically in light of experience,
research, public commentary, and the products available from many
other groups that are creating and refining similar documents.
Under their rule-making responsibilities, the Department of Education
and the State Board of Education will retain jurisdiction to make
changes in future years. Comments and suggestions are appropriately
addressed to:
Learning Results
Maine Department of Education
23 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0023
This document is available at http://www.state.me.us/education, the Department of Education's home page on the World Wide Web.