New standards promise to boost Arizona schools
Sep 27, 2012, 1:45 PM | Updated: 8:16 pm
PHOENIX — Parents of children in kindergarten through 12th grade, especially first, second or third grades, are about to see a massive change in the way public classrooms operate.
Namely, the amount of time teachers will be spending teaching the fundamentals. That’s because Gov. Jan Brewer has formally hitched Arizona’s academic wagon to 47 other states’ all subscribing to the new Common Core Curriculum Standards.
The standards are designed to help Arizona high school graduates move onto college or trade schools with the knowledge to compete for higher-paying jobs in the global market.
“The reality is the world has changed,” said Pearl Chang Esau, CEO of Expect More Arizona. “Employers expect to hire people with some type of education or training beyond high school.
“In fact, 85 percent of high-growth, high-wage jobs in Arizona will require some form of post secondary education.”
For the past two years, the state education department has moved swiftly to train more than 14,000 educators and education leaders on the principles of the Common Core Standards. If the plan goes as State Superintendent John Huppenthal hopes it will, the program will be in every public school by the end of 2014.
So what will that mean in the classroom?
“Teachers will build a learning environment that challenges children to think deeply, experiment, innovate and push their own thinking forward into unknown territory,” said associate superintendent Kathryn Hrablik.
She is overseeing the training, which will be throwing out the long hated AIMS Standardized Testing. No dancing, just yet, though. The AIMS test, Hrablik said, will be replaced by another standardized test.
“Which will require students demonstrate mastery as problem solvers,” Hrablik said. In other words, exams will likely be part essay and part multiple choice for students.
The questions will be on topics deeply covered by their teachers in class. Proponents of the standards believe spending more time on a topic, rather than grazing over it, will allow students to not only absorb the information, but deeply understand it.
Although the Department of Education plans to redirect education training budgets to help pay for the effort, Chang Esau said it will take business leaders, parents and the community support to make it happen.
Parents, Esau recommends, can show their support by visiting school administrators and asking if Core Curriculum Standards are being implemented at their school and asking teachers what can be done at home to support the students and the schools.
