Written By Joseph Deem ED.D.
Standards Plus staunchly advocates that schools should provide equal opportunities that ensure all students will learn their current grade-level standards. Students who fall behind should receive appropriate intervention while still learning important grade-level content. However, most adaptive learning software uses the erroneous premises that students should not be exposed to current grade-level standards unless they demonstrate an indeterminant competence level through a computer program.
According to Bailey Cato Czupryk from The New Teacher Project, denying students access to current grade level work and merely assigning lower-level content is not sufficient. This strategy “practically guarantees” that the most vulnerable learners “will lose more academic ground and get even less access to grade-level work in the future.”
All students should have multiple opportunities to learn their relevant grade-level standards, even if some have not yet mastered every other standard. This approach is crucial as schools try to help students meet grade level expectations.
Ensuring that no student misses out on grade-level material has been the primary focus of the Standards Plus product development and implementation philosophy. Monitoring achievement while applying intervention strategies is the best way to help students progress with their grade-level appropriate work. Standards Plus’s developers applied extensive research and knowledge from their vast experience working with at-risk students to create materials that implement these strategies.
Standards Plus implementation strategies and instructional materials meet the needs of students who are at risk of falling behind. Standards Plus products are well suited to allow students to catch up while moving forward to master grade-level standards. Standards Plus experts developed remediation strategies and instructional timelines that combine assessments, previous grade-level lessons, a schedule to teach current grade-level standards, and intervention materials to ensure that no student is left behind.
Numerous schools have successfully implemented Standards Plus with students who face extensive challenges. Appropriate intervention is a process in which Standard Plus provides a solution to the challenging impediments that often exist outside a school’s control. To learn more about Standards Plus materials, go to standardsplus.org.