Nevada Social Studies Standards: Revision Document Available for Review

The following memorandum was written by Stephanie Hartman:

The Nevada Social Studies Standards have been revised and a draft copy is now available for public comment. Public comment will be open from March 4, 2008 to April 4, 2008. The revised standards may be found at: http://www.doe.nv.gov/standards/socialstudies/standards_revision.html

The Social Studies Standards Revision Team has been meeting since last August to provide teachers, students, administrators, and parents with a revised Social Studies Standards document. Several issues guided the work of this team:

• First, the document needed to be user friendly and teachable for all teachers. This issue guided the decision to combine the old social studies standards document into one document. In addition, the four content area standards have been numbered sequentially to demonstrate the belief that social studies is an interdisciplinary content area.
• Second, standards and benchmarks were combined and subsumed within each content area so that teachers could effectively teach the standards and benchmarks in a school year.
• Third, the document is now laid out in a K - 12 continuum so that teachers can read the content across the grades to see what students should have learned before and after a specific grade.
• Finally, the group focused on the idea that the standards and benchmarks are not meant to be curriculum, but instead, to provide a framework for guidance to districts in the development of an appropriate and comprehensive social studies curriculum.

For questions, please contact Stephanie Hartman at (775) 687-2450 or at shartman@doe.nv.gov.