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WV school board OKs changes to Common Core standards, reduces standardized testing
By Ryan Quinn, Education Reporter GAZETTE MAIL
The West Virginia Board of Education voted to replace the state's Common Core-based math and English/language arts standards with revised education requirements, effective next school year.
In voice votes with no nays heard, the West Virginia Board of Education on Thursday chose to replace the state's Common Core-based math and English/language arts standards with revised education requirements, effective next school year.
The board also approved making permanent, beginning this spring, the recent reduction in end-of-year standardized testing in two subjects that don't have Common Core-based standards: science and social studies. All end-of-school-year social studies standardized testing will be eliminated and tested grades in science will drop from third-11th to just fourth, sixth and 10th.
The board placed the revised math and English/language arts standards out for a 30-day public comment period last month. Because the list of comments submitted during that time, as well as the changes made based on them, weren't available long before Thursday's meeting, it wasn't immediately clear how extensively the standards approved differ from the version the board posted for comment last month. A brief reading of the documents on the comment period suggests the change is limited.
State Schools Superintendent Michael Martirano said alterations made since last month were largely "fine-tuning." He said the larger changes came from the previous, special online "Academic Spotlight" review of the standards and eight town hall meetings on the issue across the state.
That review â launched after lawmakers failed in their attempt early this year to repeal the existing standards â allowed the public from early July until Sept. 30 to comment online on any of the more than 900 standards. It garnered more than 240,000 online comments from more than 5,000 individuals.
More than 90 percent of the comments supported the standards and, although the website accepted comments from anyone over 18, self-identified West Virginia K-12 teachers were responsible for 91 percent of the comments.
"Content review teams," comprised of a total of 48 educators, reviewed the comments during two two-day sessions, focusing on the top five most-disagreed-with standards in each grade level or course, and recommended changes. Education department officials said they then used the feedback to draft the standards changes that the board placed on public comment last month, although the department didn't include every revision the content review teams suggested and made some changes they didn't propose.
Some of the changes that came out of the standards review include the requirement to teach cursive, and some higher-grade math standards moved to different courses.
But the proposed standards that emerged from that process do retain much of the same wording, down to the same examples and similar ordering, that are in Common Core. Martirano, however, said the new standards no longer are Common Core-based, and has responded to the similarities by arguing that what students need to learn can only be stated in limited ways.
"I think the biggest thing right now is we need to acknowledge the fact that Common Core in West Virginia has been repealed by the state Board of Education," he told reporters Thursday, citing the more than 5,000 people who provided feedback as part of the state's special review and the need to move onto other issues.
Department of Education Chief Academic Officer Clayton Burch said all changes made to the standards since the board put them out on public comment last month came from the public comments submitted during that time, aside from a seemingly limited amendment to one part of the standards that board member Beverly Kingery suggested and the board adopted Thursday.
State school board President Mike Green â who met with legislators Monday, when the comment period ended â also said the most recent revisions would reflect only the comments made, and said he didn't approach the education department with further changes based on what he and lawmakers discussed.
House Speaker Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha, said earlier that if the board adopted the standards as they were when they were placed on public comment last month, lawmakers would pursue further action to make the further modifications they want.
Armstead said Thursday there is still "a very high likelihood that we'll be taking up legislation."
"So I don't believe that the Legislature feels that this has gone far enough," he said. "I think there's still a great deal of concern."
Martirano said he can't predict what lawmakers will do and asked again for them to come forward with any specific changes they might want, saying he's open to any alterations that won't disrupt the education system. As lawmakers tried to repeal the standards during the last session, Martirano said he hadn't heard criticism of any specific standards.
"This process has been going on for close to a year," he said Thursday. "If there's still more changes to come, please bring those forward soon, so that I can review those to see what adjustments need to occur, because I don't want to disrupt the educational process with some draconian change that is thrust upon us from another body."
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com,
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