--Three year effort includes launching of new website--

( Dover, DE.) The Delaware Department of Education (DOE) has announced that all components of its statewide recommended curriculum framework have been completed, including a launch of the Department’s new Delaware Recommended Curriculum (DRC) website.

The state’s curriculum design project is the culmination of a three-year effort to update its academic content standards and define a K-12 curriculum map (including Grade-Level Expectations or Benchmarks) in all content areas (English Language Arts/Reading, Mathematics, Social Studies, Science, Visual & Performing Arts, World Languages, Physical Education, Health Education, Family and Consumer Sciences, Agri-Science, Business, Finance and Marketing, Skilled and Technical Sciences, and Technology Education).

DRC design teams used the existing state standards, revised standards components (GLEs) and the published work of the 1995 Curriculum Framework Commission to identify important concepts and principles for standards-aligned curriculum development. Throughout the process, the department’s Curriculum & Instructional Improvement Branch, in conjunction with the Career and Technical Education work group, enlisted the help of nearly two hundred teachers, curriculum specialists, consultants, assessment designers, and higher education experts.

“The completion of the Delaware Recommended Curriculum promotes enhanced alignment between the state standards and classroom instruction because teachers are provided

with a virtual roadmap of instruction in grades K-12,” said Secretary of Education Valerie A. Woodruff. “The level of detail in our new curriculum framework will help school leaders anchor instruction at each grade level in measurable ways. The DRC will also help teachers and administrators make better use of textbooks and other instructional materials to support, rather than drive instruction.”

Collaborative discussions in each content area by standards review teams and curriculum design specialists identified critical linkages of Delaware standards to recommended teaching and learning targets announced in recent years by the American Diploma Project, Achieve, Inc., the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, among others. “The DRC project has been a highly productive effort in our state, and has produced several practical outcomes in addition to a comprehensive review of our academic standards,” said Secretary Woodruff. “I expect Delaware educators will find our DRC website to be of immediate value in benchmarking their local instructional delivery systems and secondary school course catalogues.”

Delaware’s DRC website can be accessed at http://www.doe.k12.de.us/programs/ci/. Visitors can quickly navigate between content areas, and link from standards to Grade-Level Expectations to classroom web-based resource links. In what promises to be a unique feature of the Delaware website, the Delaware Model Unit Gallery will house peer reviewed and juried exemplary units of instruction in each content area designed by Delaware teachers.

DRC project director Michael Stetter, Ed.D. acknowledged the role that local, regional, and nationally recognized educators played in the project’s success. “The willingness of our project teams to refine Delaware’s existing standards to prepare all Delaware students for success in the 21st Century workplace was both timely and challenging. I believe teachers, students, Delaware universities, employers, and the public will all recognize the impetus these revised standards and Grade-Level Expectations will give to focused curriculum alignment efforts at the local school level. Our dedicated website will provide a rich resource of curriculum information and accessibility to all.”

Delaware’s Department of Education is committed to promoting the highest quality education for every Delaware student by providing visionary leadership and superior service.