The AFT believes that strong academic standards are essential if we are to dramatically improve student achievement and to gain public confidence in our education system. Clear and rigorous standards serve to:

• focus our collective energy and resources on improving the academic performance of our students;
• help guarantee that all children, regardless of background or neighborhood, are exposed to a rigorous academic curriculum throughout their educational careers;
• help everyone in the education system expect more rigorous learning;and
• help ensure continuity of academic experience from grade to grade and school to school, mitigating the negative effects of student mobility.

Standards also can put an end to the destructive, deceiving practice of social promotion.

Characteristics of Strong Academic Content Standards
Standards serve as the basis for developing curriculum and assessments. Standards should require that elementary school students be exposed to a solid foundation of knowledge and skills in a subject so that a more in-depth study of the subject is possible when students reach the upper grades. At each level, standards should be based on the content presented at the previous level, thus guiding curriculum from elementary to high school.

The AFT believes that strong academic standards must:

1. Define the common content and skills students should learn in each of the core subjects for every grade
2. Be detailed, explicit and firmly rooted in the content of the subject area to lead to a common core curriculum
3. Have particuilar content for each of the four core curriculum areas
4. Provide attention to both content and skills
5. Be vertically aligned to show how learning builds from one grade to the next
6. Include sample student work to exemplify the standards and help guide the test development process
7. Include grade- and content-specific performance expectations that describe the knowledge and skills expected for each performance level (basic, proficient, advanced)