State officials discuss new education standards

House Bill 1490, passed by Governor Nixon in july, is now in the works as Missouri educators reorganize the standards of education. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education met this morning, to listen to the progress state wide groups had made and to hear public opinion.

President of the Board of Education Peter Herschend says,”you could tell they were very very brief reports, few were substantive in the sense of here are recommendations one two three and four, but the statue requires we meet the statutory requirement and I think it’s a good process, it’s ok”.

Eight groups divided by subjects and grade levels presented three minutes each of what their groups have been working on so far. These representatives are all appointed by state officials.

“I’m pleased simply because even though I may or may not agree with every, I don’t agree with every presenter out there, because we all have our views, the presentations were civil in the sense of good disscusion, even the ones I would disagree from a professional stand point, I have eight or nine notes on things I want to follow up on and most of them were coming from people that said no you’ve got something wrong”, says Herschend.

When the meeting broke into the public hearing portion concerns were discussed from those happy about the new law and those that preferred the common core standards. Some people voiced concern that these specific groups would take the current common core standards, reword and adjust them to be resubmitted. Others were upset with the amount of state wide testing.

Over the next few months, the individual groups will continue to meet, to create the new standards of education.

“They will come down and refine and if say you’re in 6-12 math, they will get down to what are the standards for algebra one and much of that will become written material”, says Herschend.

The group plans on meeting two more times to discuss the progressing work that these individual groups are doing.

For more information on House Bill 1490, click here.