California Content Standards and Independent Study

 The California Content Standards according to the California Department of Education were designed to encourage the highest achievement of every student, by defining the knowledge, concepts, and skills that students should acquire at each grade level.

 If your child is currently attending a California public school the school is ostensibly addressing each content standard in every core area until mastery is achieved.

 Those core subject areas are:

English Language Arts

Mathematics

History-Social Science

Science

Visual and Performing Arts 

Some parents might question; are all of these content standards truly “learned” by the student?

Is the presentation or order in which these content standards presented in the best sequence or format for each child?

 If my child does not achieve mastery in all areas should I become overly concerned? 

Often the public school program does not, indeed cannot adequately address each standard for the individual student’s needs. Perhaps one student may master the entire English Language Arts standard but be struggling to master the Math standards deemed appropriate to their particular grade level. Consider also that although a child may be able to “test out” as proficient, retention is often negligible.  

How does this functionally affect California homeschoolers or Independent Study students?

When you choose to follow an independent model as defined by Arbor Academy, the parent as advisor and guide for the student may address the standards as best suit their child’s current skill sets and abilities.

E.g. perhaps your third grade child is able to work at the level of the sixth grade English Language Arts standards, but requires more concentrated effort within the third grade Mathematics standards. Perhaps with some remedial issues, which are actually listed within the second grade standards.

In this scenario the parent is free to simply and naturally address the remedial issues/needs of the student while allowing them to continue to progress at an accelerated pace in other areas. This removes the burden of failure and the rush to simply "cram it all in"  that is so antithetical to true learning.

Arbor Academy fully supports the parent’s right to choose the best path for their child, while informing and assisting them to find that path.

Find out more at about the California Content Standards at:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/index.asp

·  English Language Arts
HTML | PDF (600KB; 92pp.)

·  Mathematics
HTML | PDF (504KB; 72pp.)

·  History-Social Science
HTML | PDF (611KB; 72pp.)

· Science
HTML | PDF (495KB; 62pp.)

· Visual and Performing Arts
Complete Document in Portable Document Format: PDF (1.1MB; 172pp.)

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