The Anchorage School Board has adopted national education standards. The board approved the ‘Common Core Standards’ on Thursday.
Earlier this month administrators recommended the Anchorage School Board adopt the ‘Common Core’ Standards, and Thursday the board approved them 5-2. Superintendent Carol Comeau says, the new national standards will help the district meet its goals of boosting graduation rates and getting all students college and work ready.
“The Common Core is a rigorous set of evidence-based standards that are really consistent aligned with college and career expectations and that certainly goes along with what the board has put into the vision statement, their goals, their strategic initiatives,” Comeau said.
Forty-five states have adopted the ‘Common Core Standards, but it’s unusual for a city to institute them. The state has its own standards, which the school board has been following, but Comeau says they’re just too low. Administrators are now tasked with putting together an implementation plan.
“This is a long range project. We definitely though are going to begin this summer looking at the alignment of our curriculum to the common core standards and see where we need to make some adjustments in how we’re teaching and what we’re teaching,” Comeau said.
The Common Core Standards are for English language arts & literacy in history and social studies, science and technical subjects in grades K-12. Teachers will begin integrating them into classrooms across the District this fall.
Daysha Eaton is a contributor with the Alaska Public Radio Network.
Daysha Eaton holds a B.A. from Evergreen State College, and a M.A. from the University of Southern California. Daysha got her start in radio at Seattle public radio stations, KPLU and KUOW. Before coming to KBBI, she was the News Director at KYUK in Bethel. She has also worked as the Southcentral Reporter for KSKA in Anchorage.
Daysha's work has appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered", PRI's "The World" and "National Native News". She's happy to take assignments, and to get news tips, which are best sent via email.
Daysha became a journalist because she believes in the power of storytelling. Stories connect us and they help us make sense of our world. They shed light on injustice and they comfort us in troubled times. She got into public broadcasting because it seems to fulfill the intention of the 4th Estate and to most effectively apply the freedom of the press granted to us through the Constitution. She feels that public radio has a special way of moving people emotionally through sound, taking them to remote places, introducing them to people they would not otherwise meet and compelling them to think about issues they might ordinarily overlook.
