2131 - CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFECTIVE STATEMENT OF EDUCATIONAL BENCHMARKS

The following characteristics should be true of the educational benchmarks that will guide the District’s curriculum.

1. Each benchmark should be concise and understandable to staff, students, parents, and the community.
2. Each benchmark should encompass previous learnings and require the student to integrate and then apply certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes in order to demonstrate achievement of the objective.
3. Each benchmark should constitute learning that is:
    
   1. durable - will be useful to the student for a considerable period of his/her lifetime;
   2. significant - will have a major effect upon how the student will function;
   3. transferable - will be useful in meeting needs in other educational programs, the world of work, and/or the student's personal life.
4. Each benchmark should be feasible for the staff and students to accomplish.
5. Each benchmark should be measurable on a cumulative basis and at different stages of the student's career in the District and the measurement should be both valid and reliable.
6. Each benchmark should be accompanied by both the criteria by which the learning will be judged and the standards of quality which will apply.

© Neola 2003