A Florida Promise: High Standards
Creating High Expectations
Florida created the Sunshine State Standards to give parents, teachers, principals and the public a clear expectation of what students should learn at each grade level.
For example, a Kindergarten student should know the letters and sounds of the alphabet by the end of the year. Third graders should be able to read independently, meaning they can understand words, sentences and paragraphs without help. By the end of the sixth grade, students should be able to identify word parts, such as prefixes and suffixes.
Created by teachers, the Sunshine State Standards serve as the basis for developing curriculum, instruction and assessment, including the FCAT. They don’t tell teachers how to teach, but they give clear objectives for what students should learn during the school year.
First adopted by the State Board of Education in 1996, the standards provide specific benchmarks for learning in seven subject areas – language arts, math, science, social studies, foreign language, health/physical education and the arts. In 2006, the Department of Education began a process to make Florida’s standards more rigorous.
Learn more about the current Sunshine State Standards.
Learn more about the process of revising Florida’s standards and review the new standards by grade level and subject.
