The Ohio Department of Education is asking the public to weigh in on state standards for school pupils. The heart of the state criteria was adopted five years ago, some subjects inluded the Common Core standards used by many states. But now that teachers have had a few years to work through them, the department is open to some revisions. State Impact Ohio’s Mark Urycki reports . . .
First of all, the Common Core isn’t something handed down by the federal government. The Common Core standards took hundreds of people in Ohio and other states working years to nail down what students need to know in English and mathematics and at what grade level to teach it. It took as much work to define Ohio standards for other subjects as well.
In the Spring, Ohio asked the public to look over those English and math standards. Now the state Department of Education wants input on its standards for Science, Financial Literacy, and Social Studies.
It’s not simple. Ohio standards for K-12 science alone runs 344 pages.
They made a How-To video to help citizens walk through the process.
VIDEO “Kindergarten students learn that weather changes are long term or short term. That’s part of the topic Daily and Seasonal Changes within the strand Earth & Space Science.”
Any suggested changes go to committees of teachers and education professionals. They’ll work on them for over a year before final revisions are approved by the state board of education.
A specific curriculum to teach the standards is decided by each local school district.
Mark.Urycki@ideastream.org