State Board Approves New Missouri Learning Standards
As a result of legislation passed in 2014 (HB 1490), the the State Board of Education recently approved new Missouri Learning Standards for K-12 students across Missouri. School districts will use the new grade- and course-level expectations to develop local curriculum and lessons. According to the Department of Education “the revised Missouri Learning Standards were developed by Missourians for Missouri Classrooms. The Department staff used the feedback to align expectations between the K-5 and 6-12 workgroups.” This will be the fourth set of standards passed down to school districts in almost as many years. The State has transition from the previous grade- and course-level standards to the Common Core State Standards to the first version of the Missouri Learning Standards and now onto these new standards. Please note that this becomes very frustrating work for teachers, administrators, and school districts trying to implement expectations from the State of Missouri as they seem to be ever-changing.
Along with the change in standards, Missouri will also no longer a member of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Missouri students will still take assessments based on the previous Missouri Learning Standards in spring of 2016 and 2017. Thankfully, the online testing platform will not change for 2016 and 2017 school year. This change will occur during the spring of 2018 as new English language arts and math assessments will be available.
Notable changes to the standards include a greater emphasis on research writing in grades K-5. Cursive writing was added to the K-5 English language arts expectations. The previous standards urged legible writing, but they did not specify cursive writing. The new expectations for high school mathematics were reorganized into traditional high school math courses with very few changes. Some grade levels materials have been shuffled around, for example lessons on time and money have been moved back down to earlier grades. Science expectations transitioned from fact memorization to an application based approached using a more research based inquiry approach. The Social Studies standards place a greater emphasis on critical reading, writing and research. Missouri history was moved down from the 4th grade to the 3rd grade to allow more economics, geography and government to be taught in grades 4 and 5. Crosswalks between the old and new standards will be available by May 15.
“These standards represent thousands of hours of work, the majority of it done by volunteers,” said State Board President Charlie Shields. “These are true Missouri standards, developed by Missourians, and we should be proud.” Ensuring students graduate college is the primary goal of Missouri’s Top 10 by 20 initiative, which aims for student achievement in Missouri to rank among the top 10 states in the United States by 2020.
