State Board Launches Social Studies Standards Public Review Website
January 25, 2016
Please note: This article was originally published on 1/25/2016. Information and/or dates from past events may be not be relevant for the current school year.
This week he Tennessee State Board of Education launched a review website, https://apps.tn.gov/tcas/, to collect public feedback on Tennessee’s grade K-12 social studies standards. This is the first of two public review periods for the social studies standards.
The social studies standards set grade-specific instructional standards that exemplify what students are expected to know and be able to do by the end of a given grade or course. The current social studies standards were approved in 2013 and first implemented in the 2014-15 school year.
This highly transparent and comprehensive review process is an opportunity for every Tennessean to log in online, review each specific social studies standard by grade level, and provide comments and make suggestions for changes.
“It is exciting that we are beginning the social studies standards review process two years early,” said Dr. Sara Heyburn, executive director of the Tennessee State Board of Education. “This robust and transparent review has proven very successful with math and English language arts.”
The public review website will remain active until April 30, 2016.
Once data has been collected from the website, it will be aggregated and given word-for-word to expert educator advisory teams to review and revise the standards starting in the summer of 2016.
The revised standards will be posted for a second public review period in the fall and winter of 2016.
Following a similar review process as the math and English language arts standards, the revised standards will be reviewed in the fall of 2016 by a Standards Recommendation Committee, appointed by the Governor, Lt. Governor, and Speaker of the House.
In October 2014, Gov. Haslam introduced a comparable review process online, in partnership with the State Board, for the state’s English language arts and math standards. This process was codified by the General Assembly in HB 1035. For more information, visit http://tn.gov/sbe/topic/standards-review.