Use of Content Standards to Guide Curriculum and Instruction

Written standards that specify the content that students are expected to learn, that go beyond general expectations, and that are applied uniformly by all teachers can be valuable education reform tools for schools (Goals 2000: Educate America Act, section 211). Content standards are generally subject-specific and may be adopted from an external source (such as a professional teacher association) or developed by schools, districts, or states. To find out how pervasive standards are, the survey asked principals about the use of content standards in four core subjects: reading/language arts, mathematics, science, and history/social studies.

Seventy-eight percent of public school principals reported that their schools use content standards to a moderate or great extent to guide curriculum and instruction in all four core subjects asked about on the questionnaire (Figure 1). These findings generally hold true across the different types of schools compared in this analysis (appendix table B-2). By subject, 92 percent of principals reported their schools used content standards in mathematics, 90 percent in reading/language arts, 84 percent in science, and 81 percent in history/social studies. These findings also generally hold true across different types of schools (appendix table B-2).

About two-thirds of principals (64 percent) reported that the content standards in their school for any subject have changed to a moderate or great extent in the last 3 years (Figure 2 and appendix table B-3). This finding can be interpreted in several ways. Changes to content standards could mean that schools are updating their curricula to take advantage of current developments, or alternatively, that schools view content standards as another in a series of passing fads.

Public school principals were generally confident about the abilities of their staff members to implement reforms. About three-quarters (76 percent) reported that all or most of their staff were ready to set or apply new high standards of achievement for their students (Figure 3 and appendix table B-4). Elementary school principals (21 percent) were more likely to report that all of their staff were ready than were high school principals (8 percent) (Figure 4 and appendix table B-4). No differences were observed between schools with different proportions of students eligible for the free or reduced-price lunch program or between principals by receipt of Title I funding (appendix table B-4).

These figures on staff abilities match fairly well with the principal reports of use of content standards. While 78 percent of principals report their schools used content standards to guide curriculum and instruction, 76 percent report that most or all of their staff were ready to set or apply these content standards.

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