FAQ

To earn a diploma, students must earn two credits in mathematics. There is no requirement for what courses students must take. Districts may set requirements for specific courses or may increase the number of credits required for graduation.

In 1995, the state legislature amended the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century, requiring the State Board of Education to adopt content standards in mathematics and other subjects. The Department developed the content standards with input and review from nationally recognized curriculum experts and over 1,500 citizens. Adopted by the State Board in 1996, the standards were reviewed and revised for clarity and alignment with proficiency-based admission standards to the Oregon University System in 1998.

In the late 1990s, with the Oregon Content Standards and Assessments solidly in place, the Oregon Department of Education began its cycle of review and periodic update of statewide standards. As a part of the review, the Department requested an in-depth evaluation, from national content experts, of Oregon's content standards, benchmarks, and Oregon's data from nationally administered assessments in mathematics and English. Align to Achieve, an independent, bipartisan, non-profit organization with expertise in curriculum and evaluations presented the results of this evaluation to the Department of Education in the report Measuring Up: A Report on Education and Standards and Assessments for Oregon. The information presented in that report, supported by current research and the expertise of Oregon teachers and anticipating the passage of new federal legislation, led to the development of frameworks of Oregon's Grade-level Standards in Mathematics and English/Language Arts.

• The general, repeated statements across the benchmarks were eliminated and replaced with specific statements at each grade level to provide teachers, students, and parents with clear targets within the Common Curriculum Goals for what students should know and be able to do.
• The eligible content that previously provided guidance for constructing state assessments was eliminated and replaced by the grade-level standards.
• The K-2 Foundations were added to fill a gap in early concept development that was identified through the Achieve report.

Specifics of the Mathematics Grade-level Standards

Oregon teachers on the Mathematics Content and Assessment Panel went to great lengths to provide educators with a single document that could be used at many levels:

1. the classroom level to create lessons and monitor progress of assessments,
2. the district level to create aligned curriculum, and
3. the state level to design educational supports like the Teaching and Learning Resource Center and Oregon's Statewide Assessments

While the mathematical topics in the grade-level standards should look very familiar, the structure, placement, and uses of the grade-level standards document are different. The common curriculum goals come from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Principles and Standards 2000. NCTM's standards include content, connections between standards, and instructional emphasis. This has led to a number of key changes:

• Unlike the benchmark standards, the Oregon Grade-level Standards in Mathematics are aligned to both NCTM Standards and the Framework for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Both sets of national standards promote the idea that emphasis on academic content should change as a student matures. The Benchmark standards emphasized "equal weight" by strand. This was measured by an equal percentage of test questions. The grade level standards call for emphasis on different strands as students progress through the system. For example, while most Numbers, Operations and Measurement learning will occur at the elementary level; but 30 - 40% of the K-5 standards are directed towards students' understanding of algebraic concepts and geometry. In grades 6-8, 60% of the standards directly relate to algebraic thinking and early stages of formal algebra and geometry. In the first two years of high school, more than 70% of the standards relate to formal algebra and geometry. The balance of the standards allow student to apply algebraic and geometric thinking to develop a deeper understanding about number, measurement, statistics, and probability. Aligning instruction and assessments to standards is critical to ensuring students are given the opportunity to develop a deep mathematical foundation.
• Benchmark standards were embedded into the framework of grade-level standards throughout multiple common curriculum goals, and sometimes in multiple strands. This means that teachers can consistently use the grade-level standards to reinforce content.
• While the benchmark standards in the measurement strand included both standard and metric units, a noticeable change is the focus on the metric system at the fifth grade. Grade-level standards in the Calculations and Estimations strand compliment the focus on each unit. For example, the standard units are the focus the same years that fractions are emphasized, and metric units are complimented with decimal emphasis. Estimation standards occur in both Calculations and Estimations and in Measurement.
• Benchmark standards and the former test specifications divided standards and eligible content. The grade-level standards combine former eligible content and student performance expectations, and provide the non-technical details formerly included in the test specifications (including references to national standards and examples). The new test specifications will only include the technical information not included in the grade-level standards (the number of questions, the format of the questions, the weighting of each score reporting category (strand), etc.).
• The new format of the standards requires educators to use only one document for both content and assessment purposes.
• Benchmark standards did not include a statement about what cognitive level students were to achieve within each standard. For example, the Benchmark I standard

  "Perform whole number calculations using paper and pencil and calculator"

  could lead to many questions: Are students expected to fill in the answer on practice worksheets, or read a word problem and write a number sentence? Does accuracy matter? How important is fluency for their success at the next grade? The grade-level standards were written to answer those questions. For example, the fourth grade standard

  "Identify the most efficient operation (add, subtract, multiply, or divide) for solving a problem."

  This standard requires a student to know the operations well enough to analyze and compare their use in a problem setting in order to chose one that will allow them to answer a question efficiently.
• The format of the grade-level standards provides teachers with another tool to differentiate instruction. Grade-level standards provide teachers an instant "look back " at the development of mathematical ideas to identify what a student may be missing and a "look ahead" to provide targeted learning that compacts and accelerates the classroom curriculum.