New curriculum standards to be effective in 2019-2020 school year
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas After lengthy discussion and review
the Texas State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to revised curriculum standards for English and Spanish Language Arts & Reading on Friday for kindergarten through 8th Grade.
If given final approval at the boards April 18-21 2017 meeting the new curriculum standards would become effective with school year 2019-2020. They will replace standards approved in 2008.
The board postponed the initial vote on language arts standards for high school courses until the April meeting.
Efforts to update curriculum standards called Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) began in 2015 and involved thousands of public and higher education educators.
Early in the review process more than 1100 educators provided input on the current TEKS by completing a survey issued by
the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts (TCTELA) and Texas A&M University. TCTELA also hosted an online forum that engaged 1300 educators.
Review committees of teachers instructional specialists curriculum directors and other English and Spanish language experts appointed by the SBOE worked on recommendations and refinements to those recommendations throughout 2015 and 2016. A team of experts appointed by the board also worked tirelessly on the recommendations.
The TEKS approved for first reading and filing authorization took all this public comment into account.
The most significant changes to the TEKS involve creating a better alignment between the English & Spanish Language Arts Standards and reorganizing the TEKS into seven strands. The strands are:
- Developing & Sustaining Foundational Language Skills: listening speaking and discussion
- Comprehension Skills: listening speaking reading and writing using multiple texts
- Response Skills: listening speaking reading and writing using multiple texts
- Multiple Genres: listening speaking reading and writing using multiple texts
- Authors Craft: listening speaking reading and writing using multiple texts
- Composition: listening speaking reading and writing using multiple texts
- Inquiry and Research: listening speaking reading and writing using multiple texts
Once amendments approved by
the SBOE are incorporated into the standards they will be posted at for the:
The board also approved for first reading and filing authorization streamlined science standards. Responding to frequent comments that Texas standards are too voluminous the board began a
concerted effort to reduce scope of the standards.
Science is the first subject area to undergo the streamlining process.
As review committees worked on this project they estimated the amount of time likely required to teach all the standards to mastery. Although an imprecise measure since it will vary from class to class and student to student this work helped pinpoint areas where reductions were needed.
If given final approval in April as is now scheduled the revised science standards have a recommended implementation date of the 2017-2018 school year.
The preliminarily approved standards will be posted here shortly.
