Recently we were notified that South Carolina had created another set of standards for ELA. This will be the 4th set of standards I’ve taught since I began teaching in 2012. Of course, we will not begin teaching these standards in middle school until the 2024-2025 school year.
I think my biggest problem with a new set of standards is that it seems like each time I have them almost memorized, they change them. Each time we develop our curriculum, something changes. Each time we decide on a textbook, something changes. Each time… well, you get the picture.
I am happy that they have decided to combine some of the standards that were closely related, and they decided to do away with those that we really don’t need. Of course, I was happy with the Common Core standards when we did them. I didn’t like the current standards which were based on Common Core, but were worded in such a way that seemed to obscure their meaning. They changed the verbs, but then it muddied the meaning. Hopefully, this time we will stick with something for longer than a few years.
