Communication standards and competencies for kindergarten through grade 12: The role of the national communication association

The National Communication Association (NCA) joined the education community in addressing the Goals 2000 challenge to improve K‐12 education. In 1996, NCA published the pamphlet Speaking, Listening, and Media Literacy Standards for K Through 12 Education. Given the success of the Standards, a discipline‐wide effort was then initiated to articulate developmentally appropriate competency statements for each of NCA's 23 Standards. A team of NCA teachers and researchers has recently developed a draft of the competency statements. These projects are thriving as a function of genuine need in the educational marketplace.