About Essential Standards and Benchmarks

During the 2001 - 2002 academic year, the district chemistry instructors came together to align our courses more closely with the California State Content Standards for Chemistry. The result was an agreed upon set of "Essential Standards" and a rubric to assess achievement of the benchmarks under each of the standards.

Pertinent Documents (in PDF format)

What is the point of this change?
We have observed that many students proceed from chapter-to-chapter, passing tests but missing certain essential concepts along the way. Ultimately, these missing concepts block the student's progress to a well-rounded comprehension of the subject matter. By focusing particular attention on essential concepts and skills, we hope to increase student achievement in chemistry as assessed by test scores, percentages of students passing our courses, and by student scores on California State Standardized tests, including the STAR.

As noted in the course outline:
Students are first and foremost expected to achieve the essential standards for chemistry. Student achievement of the standards will be assessed primarily through benchmark quizzes. Students will be allowed unlimited opportunities to improve their scores until they achieve a score that indicates a mastery of the standard, generally a score of 75% or better. In my class, students can retake a benchmark as many times as necessary until the end of the NEXT unit. In other words, benchmarks from Unit 1 must be made up before the end of Unit 2, and so-forth. After the deadline, benchmarks that have not been passed will be assigned a permanent score of zero points.

Multiple Opportunities to Pass:
Students and parents should understand that a single failed quiz will not immediately result in an "F" in the class. Students earn NO points on a benchmark until they have achieved a score of at least 75%. Until that time, there is no score recorded for the assessment. If the student fails to pass the benchmark by the deadline, the score is a permanent "zero". Retakes may be similar, though not identical quizzes, graded by the same standards as the original quiz. Students must make up the quiz during available make-up times such as before school and at lunch (NOT after school!)

Unlimited Help:
No student has ever exhausted my ability to provide assistance. Rather than have students take a quiz repeatedly in the hope of "lucking out" and passing, it is preferable that each student make an effort to get help from the instuctor prior to taking a second or a third attempt at passing a benchmark. Since creating make-up quizzes requires a significant investment of time on the part of the instructor, the instructor reserves the right to REQUIRE a student to come in for tutoring prior to attempting a re-take.




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