Department of Education upgrades standards review process

Today, the Florida Department of Education announced to Historic City News the release of another opportunity for education stakeholders to submit input for the standards review process. This new survey enables respondents to provide feedback on each existing standard individually at www.floridastandardsreview.org Floridians still can submit general comments through the original survey link.

In February, Governor DeSantis issued Executive Order 19-32 to ensure Florida has the best academic standards in the nation by eliminating Common Core and paving the way for Florida students to receive a world-class education to prepare them for jobs of the future. This mandate directs Commissioner Richard Corcoran to comprehensively review the academic standards for Florida’s kindergarten through grade twelve students and provide recommended revisions to the Governor by January 1, 2020.

“We have long decried the endless issues associated with Common Core, and we are taking action to eliminate every last shred of it from Florida’s academic standards,” Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said.  “That’s why today we deployed this specific, detailed survey tool that we’ll use to make student-focused changes.”

This review process is believed to be the first time that any state has had the ability to collect and instantly analyze widespread public opinion on the education standards that drive the K-12 public school curriculum.

Stakeholders now can seamlessly review each of Florida’s current Mathematics and English Language Arts standards by grade level, with additional content area standards forthcoming for review. For each subject and grade level, respondents are asked to state whether they would keep the standards as is, revise the current standard or eliminate the standards entirely and provide a rationale for their selection. The department will use the recommendations submitted through this process to develop new proposed standards before holding public hearings this fall and preparing the final standards to be submitted to Governor DeSantis.

In addition to collecting public input, the department is examining standards from across the nation and will also consider benchmarking international standards to ensure Florida has the best standards in the world. The department is consulting with national experts on what is generally accepted as historically exceptional standards and those standards are posted at www.fldoe.org/standardsreview

Department leadership has held calls and presented to more than a dozen organizations and stakeholders on the standards review process, including: school district superintendents, staff, teachers and administrators; secondary career and technical education directors; Florida Philanthropic Network; Panhandle Area Educational Consortium; Impact Florida; Florida Children and Youth Cabinet; Florida Association of Colleges of Teacher Education; Consortium of Florida Education Foundations; Florida Association of District School Superintendents; Florida Parent Teacher Association; and representatives from other civil rights and community organizations.