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 important factors that have helped shape American Society
• Know ways in which Americans have attempted to make the values and principles of the constitution a reality.
• Understand the significance of fundamental values and principles for the individual and society.
• Know some of the efforts that have been put forth to reduce discrepancies between ideals and the reality of American public life.
• Know how various individual actions, social actions, and political actions and help to reduce discrepancies between reality and the ideals of American Constitutional democracy.
• Know historical and contemporary efforts to reduce discrepancies between ideals and reality in American public life.
• Analyze the values held by specific people who influence history and the role their values played in influencing history.
• Understands how minority groups were affected by World War II.
• Evaluate the validity and credibility of different historical interpretations.
• Use a variety of resource materials to gather information for research topics.
• Use a variety of criteria to evaluate the validity and reliability of primary and secondary source information.
• Synthesize information form the multiple research studies to draw conclusions that go beyond those found in any of the individual studies.
• Analyzes decisions that were major turning points in history and describes how things would have been different if other alternatives had been selected.
• Compares and contrasts the credibility of differing accounts of the same event.
• Identifies and questions false analogies.
• Questions claims that use vague references such as "leading experts say..." or are based on the statements of people speaking outside of their expertise.
• Identifies techniques used to slant information in subtle ways.
• Uses a variety of criteria to evaluate informational media.
• Uses strategies to analyze stereotypes in visual media.
• Understands the role of the media in addressing social and cultural issues.