Changes Coming For State Standards
COLORADO SPRINGS – It’s the test that drives schools’ curriculum and teachers’ lesson plans. But changes could be on the way for the CSAP. The Colorado Department of Education is holding a meeting Wednesday at 5:30p.m. at the Antlers Hilton in Colorado Springsabout new state standards. It’s the first step in changing how Colorado students and schools are evaluated.
They are your guide,” says Bev Tarpley, assistant superintendent at Cheyenne Mountain School District 12, “[the standards] are your roadmap.” Standards that have been in place for more than a decade in Colorado and the state says it’s time to change.
“They’ll have jobs we don’t even know about yet,” Tarpley says of students, “so we’re doing our best to move into the 21st century and give kids 21st century skills.” Using clearer, fewer, higher standards that cover subjects from reading and math to geography and financial literacy.
“It also shows me exactly where it’s relevant,” Tarpley says of new standards, “why it’s important.” The new standards are broken out specifically by grade level. “I think they’ll be comforted that because it’s more clearer what I,” Tarpley says, “as a teacher in a particular grade or course, do.”
The new standards also require a new way to assess students: the process to change state testing begins in January. “Looking at an assessment system and that system will have different parts to it,” says Brenda Barr with the Colorado Department of Education, “and we don’t know what that will look like yet, CSAP 2.0.”
Changes to standards or CSAP tests won’t affect students this school year. The Department of Education says it’ll have changes in place by March of 2011. Click here for additional information on the standards.
