Having completed the task of identifying Eight Common High Expectations for all students, the Superintendents requested help identifying benchmarks for those, literally essential competencies and milestones of progress that could serve as both targets for teachers, schools and districts and data points in monitoring their progress toward those targets.
Since the State of Michigan had already developed a Curriculum Framework and Grade Level Content Expectations for English language arts and mathematics, the work began with those five of the original eight for which no such tool existed. Originally assigned to the Assessment Work Group, the enormous work quickly spun out to committees of local educators guided by WISD staff. By the end of the 2003-2004 school year, five committees had completed the benchmarks for: Identifying and Accessing Resources, Communication, Personal and Interpersonal Skills, Habits of Mind, and Complex Thinking. These were found to be so clear and useful that the superintendents requested work on the remaining three: Literacy, Mathematical Knowledge and Application, and Content Knowledge.
View the benchmarks document in its present form:
