Homeschooling: A Resource for Parents and Teachers

Document Organization: The Vision describes the significance of the arts to a well-rounded education and to preparation for college, career, and civic participation. The Guiding Principles describe the key components that should guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of pre-K through grade 12 arts curriculum and instruction. The pre-K through 12 Standards for Artistic Practice describe skills students develop and improve across their entire Arts education. They focus on dispositions and skills that underlie creating, presenting, producing, responding within each arts discipline, and making connections across disciplines. The Content Standards describe what students should know and be able to do in each of the arts disciplines within elementary and middle school grade clusters (pre-K–K, grades 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8), and in high school courses at the foundations, proficient, and advanced levels. They are organized into five disciplines (dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts) and are designed to complement the development of the Standards for Artistic Practice.

All Massachusetts students will be educated in the histories of the Commonwealth, the United States, and the world. They will be prepared to make informed civic choices and assume their responsibility for strengthening equality, justice, and liberty in and beyond the United States

Student-led, civics projects support the development of civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions as defined in the 2018 History and Social Science Curriculum Framework.

As a natural outgrowth of meeting the charge to define college and career readiness and civic preparation, the standards also lay out a vision of what it means to be a literate person in this century. Indeed, the skills and understandings students are expected to demonstrate have wide applicability outside the classroom or workplace. Students who meet the standards readily undertake the close, attentive reading that is at the heart of understanding and enjoying complex works of literature. They habitually perform the critical reading necessary to navigate the staggering amount of information available todaybothin print and digitally. They actively seek the wide, deep, and thoughtful engagement with high-quality literary and informational texts that builds knowledge, enlarges experience, and broadens worldviews. They reflexively demonstrate the cogent reasoning and use of evidence that is essential to both private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a democratic republic. Students who meet the standards develop the skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening that are the foundation for any creative and purposeful expression in language.

The standards describe a vision of what it means to be a mathematically proficient person in this century. Students who are college and career ready in mathematics will at a minimum demonstrate the academic knowledge, skills, and practices necessary to enter into and succeed in entry-level, credit bearing courses in College Algebra, Introductory College Statistics, or technical courses. It also extends to a comparable entry-level course or a certificate or workplace training programrequiring an equivalent levelof mathematics. At the same time, the standards provide for a course of study that will prepare students for a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics career.

The standards include core concepts in four strands: Computing and Society, Digital Tools and, Computing Systems, and Computational Thinking.

Students’ STE experience should encourage and facilitate engagement in STE to prepare them for the reality that most careers require some scientific or technical preparation, and to increase their interest in and consideration of careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).