The following standards have been taken from the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McRel) standards.

The students will:

• Understand the importance of equality of opportunity and equal protection of the law as a characteristic of American society
• Understand the importance of education as a characteristic of American society
• Understand important factors that have helped shape American society
• Know ways in which Americans have attempted to make the values and principles of the U.S. Constitution a reality
• Understand the significance of fundamental values and principles for the individual and society
• Know some of the historical and contemporary efforts put forth to reduce discrepancies between ideals and the reality of American public life
• Know how various individual, social, and political actions have helped to reduce discrepancies between reality and the ideals of the American constitutional democracy
• Understand significant influences on the Civil Rights Movement
• Know different types of primary and secondary sources and recognize the motives, interests, and biases they express
• Analyze the values held by specific people who influence history, and the roles these values played in influencing history
• Evaluate the validity and credibility of different historical interpretations
• Use a variety of resource materials, including primary sources, to gather information for research topics
• Use various criteria to evaluate the validity and reliability of primary and secondary source information
• Synthesize information from multiple research studies to draw conclusions that go beyond those in any of the individual studies