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PSS to introduce benchmarks for Social Studies
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Posted on Jun 25 1999
The Public School System will run a field test of the academic standard set for Social Studies and cover students from kindergarten to senior high school beginning August.
Associate Commissioner for Instruction Rita Sablan said PSS has convened a series of sessions with a team of school officials to identify the important core areas that students should learn from Social Studies.
Four major areas were considered crucial namely History, Economics, Civics and Geography.
The first draft on the Social Studies benchmark is due next week and will be tested this coming school year.
Sablan said the Board of Education will need to sanction this proposed standard. However, board members will be able to evaluate it based on the results of the test run this year.
Social studies reference textbooks to support the standard will likewise be listed after the test run and approval by the Board.
The standards set by PSS for reading, language, math and science are related to the benchmarks used in the Stanford Achievement Test or SAT 9.
The PSS first employed SAT 9 in 1997 to gather “learning images” from students enrolled in grades third, fifth, eighth, 10th and 11th. This year, however, PSS required all students enrolled to take the SAT 9.
