Adoption in Wisconsin of new national education standards likely would lead to curriculum changes, including targeting concepts to specific grades rather than a range of grade levels, education officials said Wednesday.
Wisconsin is one of the 48 states that have signed up with the standards initiative and participated in the drafting of the new benchmarks that lay out what students should learn grade-by-grade in English and mathematics.
It would be up to individual school boards to alter their curricula to align them with the new standards, but state Department of Public Instruction spokesman Patrick Gasper noted that the state also will revise its standardized assessments to reflect the changes.
School districts that do not change their own standards and curricula might risk performing poorly on the state's reading and math tests.
In addition to being benchmarked against what is being taught in other countries, the common core standards would depart from Wisconsin's current standards by generally providing greater detail for what concepts should be taught in each grade level, said Sue Grady, executive assistant to Wisconsin's schools superintendent.
Many of the common standards are targeted to specific grade levels, whereas Wisconsin's current standards generally span multiple grades, giving schools more discretion over when they might teach a concept.
"Districts will have to look at their individual curriculums that they offer and compare that to what is in the common core," Grady said.
The state Department of Public Instruction received a copy of the draft standards Monday and shared them with education groups in the state, encouraging them to provide feedback, Grady said. Grady also urged other interested individuals to provide input during the public feedback period, which will extend to April 2.
The state intends to adopt the final version of the collaborative effort, replacing its current model academic standards for English and math, she said.
The state constitution gives state schools Superintendent Tony Evers the authority to adopt the standards on his own after they have been finalized, Gasper said.