The subject of this study is the critical thinking of schoolchildren. The article substantiates the relevance of the problem of the development of critical thinking of students in the modern world. Critical thinking skills are one of the main features of a successful graduate of an educational institution. In this regard, it is considered necessary to reflect the criteria for evaluating such skills in educational state standards. As one of the ways to solve this problem, the article analyzed the approach of the international community to this issue as a possible way to implement the development of critical thinking in Kazakh school education. An attempt is made to define a set of requirements for determining criteria for the development of critical thinking skills and some methods of assessing critical thinking are proposed that will be used by the authors of the state general education standard. The purpose of the study was achieved because the proposed evaluation criteria were tested in international experience and brought positive results that can be used by educators and students of pedagogical faculties.