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“Louisiana Student Standards” Now Open to Public Review


State: Louisiana
Level: Higher EducationP12
Analyst: Ratliff, Clancy

Earlier this summer, the state of Louisiana passed three “compromise bills” that effectively re-branded the Common Core State Standards. One of the bills requires the state to give the public the opportunity to review and comment on the Louisiana Student Standards. In response, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has established a portal for reviewing: http://www.louisiana.statestandards.com/

For each standard, users may choose among these recommendations:

the standard should

  • remain as written
  • be moved to another grade-level
  • be broken up into smaller, more specific standards
  • be rewritten or removed

According to the Department of Education’s recent press release (http://www.louisianabelieves.com/newsroom/news-releases/2015/07/08/online-portal-opens-for-public-comment-during-louisiana-student-standards-review-process), the review will proceed as follows:

A team from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) will review all public comments received through the online portal by August 7 and present their findings to the Standards Review Committee during its first meeting on August 19 in Baton Rouge. The committee will receive additional public comment before tasking the three content subcommittees with the review of the current Louisiana Student Standards, taking into consideration public feedback, and propose updates for review during the Standards Review Committee meeting in November. During this time, online comments will continue to be received through the online portal.

At the November meeting of the Standards Review Committee, members will review the proposed updates, receive additional public comment, and then direct the content subcommittees to make revisions to the proposed standards where necessary. In February, the Standards Review Committee will review the final proposed updates from the content subcommittees for presentation to BESE during its March meetings. BESE will then consider adoption of the final draft of the Louisiana Student Standards, created through an educator-led process, to present to the Governor and Legislature.

The Department of Education has provided a document titled “How to Read the Louisiana Student Standards” which shows the standards’ similarity to Common Core:

http://www.louisiana.statestandards.com/user/louisiana/read_ela_standards.pdf

This space certainly provides an opportunity for anyone in Louisiana associated with NCTE to engage in capacity building. Hopefully it will also be a space for serious community engagement. The CCCC Statement on Faculty Work in Community-Based Settings could be useful here: http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/communitybasedsettings