Wednesday, January 21, 2015

 

Spearman Announces Initial Approval of New English Standards

Columbia, S.C. – Today, State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman issued the following statement upon first reading approval of the 2015 South Carolina College- and Career-Ready English Language Arts (ELA) Standards.

“I am pleased to announce that we’ll soon have South Carolina ELA standards ready for our state’s classrooms,” said Spearman. “Credit for this historic achievement goes to the professional teachers and Department staff who dedicated thousands of hours to create these new, high-quality, college- and career-ready standards.  Never before have we condensed a two-year process into just six months, but thanks to the great dedication of these teachers, along with our taskforce of parents, community leaders, and business men and women who provided valuable input, we have successfully developed South Carolina ELA standards for our students.  I would like to personally thank each State Board member for their support and their unanimous vote in favor of initial passage of these new standards,” concluded Spearman.

The South Carolina ELA standards are vertically aligned and include inquiry-based literacy standards, the teaching of cursive writing, principles of reading, fundamentals of reading, writing and communication, and disciplinary literacy.  The standards must be reviewed and approved by the Education Oversight Committee (EOC) next month before second reading by the State Board of Education in March.  Additionally, institutions of higher education must certify the standards as college-and career-ready.

These standards were developed in response to Act 200, which required the state to develop South Carolina ELA and mathematics standards.  The Department has convened professional educators to conclude work on the South Carolina math standards, which will be presented for first reading to the State Board of Education next month.

After the South Carolina ELA and math standards are approved by the State Board of Education in March, professional development will commence and the standards will be implemented in South Carolina classrooms in the 2015-16 school year.