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Drafts of the Colorado Academic Standards

 

Colorado subcommittees' final DRAFT recommendations:

    Reading, Writing, and Communicating
    Visual Arts
    Drama and Theatre Arts
    Mathematics
    Social Studies
    Dance
    Science
    World Language
    Music
    Health/PE

    English Language Development

 
 

 

FIRST DRAFTS:  The following steps were followed in each phase to create the first draft in each content area.

1. WestEd gap analysis
2. Subcommittee revision of current standards
3. National expert review in content
4. Subcommittee processing of expert recommendations
5. Internal edit for formatting, syntax and grammar for first public draft
 

SECOND DRAFTS and PUBLIC FEEDBACK: The following steps were followed in each phase to create the first draft in each content area.

  1. Public feedback received through public meetings and online opportunities

  2. Subcommittee processing of recommendations from public

 

 

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English Language Development:

The English Language Development subcommittee plans to recommend to the Colorado State Board of Education that they adopt the WIDA standards. In order to offer your feedback regarding this recommendation, please submit an e-mail to Standards_Review_Com@cde.state.co.us

What can I do to help?

  1. First read to understand.

    1. These standards are not like the old ones

    2. They are not a curriculum or an exhaustive detail of each lesson or fact.

    3. They are the few, crucial concepts and skills students need to have mastered by the end of each grade. When they actually are taught in the classroom is intentionally unspoken.

  2. Learn the new structure.

    1. At the top of each discipline are the final prepared graduate competencies we want all students to be able to do in twelfth grade. This is the goal or the “end in mind” behind the rest of the text.

    2. The standards are the “buckets” of how we organize the big ideas of one subject of study into those which are related to one another. (For example , pattern finding and algebraic thinking are similar and therefore are organized together within mathematics)

    3. Each grade or grade span now has grade levels of expectation (of mastery), not “benchmarks”. These represent a distinct concept and skills a student should know.

    4. Now, each expectation also has an evidence outcome for a student to make meaning of the knowledge and prove how they know it.  This is intended to engage the student and help them find relevance in the study. The 21st century skills are a part of this evidence element.

  3. Examine this document as a prototype.

    It is a first draft of state standards which represent expressions of many who work with education. It is by no means perfect or finished.  Does this conceptually work? How would you improve it?

  4. Let us know your comments and stay engaged early this year.

    1. Write us your specific ideas about what needs to be kept and what needs improvement at our web page.

    2. Attend a face to face evening town meeting at one of 24 city sites across the state of Colorado.

One final comment:

These drafts represent a new kind of state standards.  It is not a resource or a substitution for curriculum. It is intentionally only the outline of the most crucial concepts and skills students must master at grade level or high school level to be successful for opportunities at higher learning institutions.

 

It begs for new kinds of professional development, teacher education, state curriculum supports and new assessments.

…And that was the genesis of the change mentioned at the beginning of the 2008 Colorado education reform.

Comments may be submitted to Standards_Review_Com@cde.state.co.us