National Standards...What Do You Think?

I received the following email from Ana C. Post, Director of External Relations & Council Communications at the National Council for the Social Studies. Please use this blog and the attached survey to give your feedback:

Dear Affiliate Leaders,

We wanted to share with you the following key points regarding the attached WP Hearing Summary, as well as article links (below), to keep you informed of a state-led initiative towards a building a common, voluntary set of standards, and how this may affect states, local school districts, administrators, teachers, classrooms and students. We also would like ask you to think of, and share with us, implications this might have on social studies (at the local/state level) and on the direction of future advocacy efforts at the state and national levels. Please don’t hesitate to be in touch with any questions.

Sincerely,

Ana

Key Points (from NCSS staff):

The Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices, are anticipating that states will have a state-led set of common standards for k-12 math and English/Language Arts by the end of this summer. Standards for other core academic subjects would follow.

At the end of April, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing to examine how states can better prepare their students to compete in a global economy by using internationally benchmarked common standards.

Key points expressed during the hearing were:

• Every state needs a well-educated workforce to compete in the global economy.
• Rigorous and relevant core standards – around what young people need to know and be able to do – need to be developed.
• Despite suggestions to contrary, teachers want this kind of reform and would like to be involved in process.
• High quality state assessments need to be designed based on the standards-- aligned tests, real accountability and high-quality instruction for all of our kids is needed for standards to work – developing assessments was cited as a potential area for federal involvement.
• Enlist teachers to design curriculum aligned with state standards

Please click here for an in-depth hearing summary.

I am also including the links to two articles that provide some more background on this topic:

“How to Raise the Standard in America’s Schools” by Walter Isaacson in the Electronic TIME issue of 4-15-09 http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1891468,00.html; and“Push is on for National Academic Standards,” by Cynthia Howell in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette http://www.nwarktimes.com/adg/News/258833/.

• Do rigorous and relevant core standards need to be developed in social studies?
• Do teachers want this type of reform?
• Do high quality state assessments, aligned with these standards, need to be developed?
• How would this initiative impact social studies in Vermont and around the country?