WLA Essential Standards

What are essential standards?

There are over 3,500 standards, which would take 15,500 hours of instruction time to cover every one.  (Marzano, What Works in Schools, 2003)

Essential standards are a carefully selected subset of the total list.

Priority (essential) standards are a carefully selected subset of the total list of the grade‐specific and course‐specific standards within each content area that students must know and be able to do by the end of each school year in order to be prepared to enter the next grade level or course. (Ainsworth, Rigorous Curriculum Design, 2010)

Essential standards do NOT represent everything taught.  They are the minimum a student must learn to reach high levels of learning. They are chosen based on the three criteria of endurance, leverage, and readiness.

• • Endurance means that the knowledge and skills are valued beyond a single test date.

  • Leverage means that the knowledge and skills are valued in multiple disciplines.

  • Readiness means that the knowledge and skills are necessary for success in the next grade level or instructional level.

HEALTH/PHYSICAL EDUCATION STANDARDS

WLA has incorporated essential health and physical education standards for each grade level. To facilitate evidence of learning, the WLA teachers have created assignments for students to demonstrate their knowledge and learning for these standards. The assignments are available in Google Classroom by grade level. The expectation is that these assignments are shared by the end of May.