New Science and Social Studies Standards

The 2017-2018 school year will bring new standards for social studies and science. New standards bring anxiety to teachers. I often hear the teachers saying the students are already not performing at the current level of the standards. The  Georgia Standards of Excellence science standards are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. According to the NGSS website, the rigorous standards reflect the content and application reflects how science and engineering are practiced in the real world. So are teachers correct in being worried about implementing these new standards?

Standards do periodically change. When I began to teach high school science, we used the Quality Core Curriculum (QCC), followed by the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS), and now the Georgia Standards of Excellence. Each curriculum was deemed to be more rigorous than its predecessor.

The anxiety that teachers have may not be completely unfounded. Prior research discussing curriculum change issues cited misaligned text and other instructional resources, lack of assessment questions, and insufficient professional development (Wiske and Levinson, 1993). The study also discussed the key roles that federal, state, and local leaders can play in removing some of the instructional barriers that cause anxiety for teachers.

As an instrucitonal leader, I am going to play a more active role in decreasing the anxiety. The science and social studies teachers have reviewed the standards and are now beginning the process of unpacking the standards to ensure they are teaching the correct content. The rigorous curriculum presents problems for more than the student. Teachers need time and resources in order to feel comfortable with the standards before they have to teach it to their students.

Wiske, M. & Levinson, C. (1993). How teachers are implementing the standards. 50(8), 8-12.