School Days.

Recently we ran the item below. 

Lex Anteinternet: The Wyoming Education Association Sues Wyoming: Old Boxelder School, Converse County, Wyoming. In what will turn out to be an issue in the Secretary of Public Instruction race this year, w...

This isn't really related, but it's interesting, in the school context.

1.  NCSD No. 1 is 115 people short.  It's apparently not a crisis, but they have positions they can't fill. The attribute in part to dropped enrollment in UW's College of Education. 

2.  NSCD No. 1 also just created new civics requirements.  The memo on that is below.

The text of the Social Studies Curriculum is 105 pages long, so its not a small document.  This means that any one page summary of it will be inaccurate nearly be definition.

Right at its front, it provides the following chart:

Content Standards and Rationale

2014 Wyoming Social Studies Content and Performance Standards

Standard 1 Citizenship, Government, and Democracy	Students analyze how people create and change structures of power, authority, and governance to understand the continuing evolution of governments and to demonstrate civic responsibility.	Rationale: The vitality and continuation of a democratic republic depends upon the education and participation of informed citizens. All students should have opportunities to apply their knowledge and skills and participate in the workings of the various levels of power, authority, and governance, which should be applied to the rights and responsibilities of good citizenship.
Standard 2 Culture and Cultural Diversity	Students demonstrate an understanding of the contributions and impacts of human interaction and cultural diversity on societies.	Rationale: Culture helps us to understand ourselves as both individuals and members of various groups. In a multicultural society, students need to understand multiple perspectives that derive from different cultural vantage points. As citizens, students need to know how institutions are maintained or changed and how they influence individuals, cultures, and societies. This understanding allows students to relate to peoples of local, tribal, state, national, and global communities.
Standard 3 Production, Distribution, and Consumption	Students describe the influence of economic factors on societies and make decisions based on economic principles.	Rationale: In a global economy marked by rapid technological, political, and economic change, students will examine how people organize for the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Standard 4 Time, Continuity, and Change	Students analyze events, people, problems, and ideas within their historical contexts.	Rationale: Students need to understand their historical roots and how events shape the past, present, and future. Students must know what life was like in the past to comprehend how things change and develop over time. Students gain historical understanding through inquiry of history by researching and interpreting events affecting individual, local, tribal, state, national, and global histories.
Standard 5 People, Places,  and Environments	Students apply their knowledge of the geographic themes (location, place, movement, region, and human/environment interactions) and skills to demonstrate an understanding of interrelationships among people, places, and environment.	Rationale: Students gain geographical perspectives of the community, state, nation, and world by studying the Earth and how humans interact with people, places, and environments. Their knowledge of geography allows students to make local and global connections. Students develop increasingly abstract thought as they use data and apply skills to analyze human behavior in relation to its physical and cultural environment.
Standard 6 Technology, Literacy, and Global Connections	Students use technology and literacy skills to access, synthesize, and evaluate information to communicate and apply social studies knowledge to global situations.	Rationale: Using a variety of resources, students will apply the inquiry process to locate, interpret, and evaluate multiple primary and secondary sources. Students will use this information to become critical thinkers and decision makers in a global community.  Social Studies Content Standard 6 was written around the Framework for 21st Century Skills and the Common Core Literacy Standards for History and Social Studies.*   *WY Social Studies teachers are responsible for the Reading and Writing ELA Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies. See Appendix

It's summary, and that's all it is, is as follows

Summary of Grade-Level Purpose Statements

 

Grade Level	A Purpose Statement describes the focus of the subject at this grade level or in this course; points out what is new or different at this level that the student will accomplish.
Kindergarten	Students will compare and contrast their family culture with other students’ family cultures. Students will identify how rules, symbols, needs and wants, changes, people, and events affect them and their role in the family.
1st Grade	Students will identify, compare, and contrast how rules, symbols, culture, wants, needs, events, United States holidays, people, places and environments affect them and their role in the classroom and school.
2nd Grade	Students will identify, compare, and contrast how rules, laws, symbols, culture, wants, needs, people, places, and environments affect them and their role in the community. Students will explain United States holidays and events and how they affect our community.
3rd Grade	Students will examine how the culture, wants, needs, events, economy, places, and environments of their community and county affect them and their role in their community. Students will apply their knowledge to identify the factors that make Casper and Natrona County unique.
4th Grade	Students will analyze Wyoming’s state history so they can explain how various cultural groups, and their tensions, led to the settlement and statehood of Wyoming.  Students will analyze how the economy of Wyoming has developed, changed, and continues to impact the state.
5th Grade	Students will examine the impact of early exploration and colonization on the founding of the United States, explain the origins of the Constitution as the framework for our government, and analyze United States geography and economy.
6th Grade	Students will analyze continents, countries, and regions of the Western Hemisphere to determine their relationships, and compare and contrast regions in terms of geography, history, economics, culture, and current events
7th Grade	Students will analyze continents, countries, and regions of the Eastern Hemisphere to determine their relationships, and compare and contrast regions in terms of geography, history, economics, culture, and current events.
8th Grade	Students will analyze the origins and development of the United States from the Colonial Period through Reconstruction to explain the foundations of modern America.
9th Grade	Students will analyze the birth of the modern United States by evaluating and synthesizing the causes and effects of major eras from westward growth through World War II and the origins of the Cold War.
10th Grade	Students will examine the continuing evolution of the United States democracy with an analysis of the U.S. Constitution and the unique characteristics of the Wyoming Constitution.  Students will examine domestic and foreign conflicts along with the policies that made the United States a superpower following World War II.  Students will then analyze and evaluate the implications of the global dominance of the United States.
11th Grade	Students will analyze multiple events and issues throughout world history and compare and contrast these in terms of the impacts of time, continuity, and change on the world.

I'm very much in favor of a solid education in history and civics, and I frankly think the school district has been doing a good job of this.  My prediction is, however, that this effort will run into protests due to the spirit of the times from people whose view of history, civics, and politics is, anti-historical.