Education department survey indicates support for state academic standards

Last August, Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday issued a challenge to Kentuckians to read the state's current academic standards in English/language arts and mathematics and suggest changes.

The online Kentucky Core Academic Standards Challenge was available through April, and the results are in:

Kentuckians who responded to the survey overwhelmingly support the state's current academic standards in English and math, Kentucky Education Department officials said.

The national Common Core Standards are the basis for Kentucky's standards on what students should know in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Academic standards define what Kentucky students are expected to learn at each grade level in order to graduate ready for college and careers. How the standards are taught — the methods and materials used — are decided by local schools.

As part of the challenge, the education department provided an online platform for people to read the standards and provide feedback on how they could be improved.

Nearly 4,000 people took part in the challenge.

Overall, 88 percent of the respondents — roughly 3,500 — gave the standards a "thumbs-up" and didn't indicate that any changes were needed, a department news release said.

About 12 percent — roughly 480 respondents — indicated that they would like to see some sort of change in one or more standards. Of that group, 71 percent wanted to see one or more standards moved to a different grade level, 32 percent suggested a rewrite of a standard, and about 8 percent wanted to see a current standard broken into two or more standards. Respondents could suggest more than one change to the standards.

Almost half of those who weighed in on the standards were teachers or retired teachers, about 20 percent were parents, 8 percent were administrators or school district staff, and another 8 percent represented business or the community at large. The rest were students, professors and people from professional education organizations.

"Our goal is to make Kentucky's academic standards the best that they can be, so that more students graduate college/career-ready with the knowledge and critical skills they need for success," Holliday said in a news release. "We are grateful to everyone who took the time to participate in the challenge and provide feedback. We were especially pleased that so many teachers took part, since they know Kentucky's standards better than anyone else."

Any changes to the standards would not be implemented until the 2016-17 school year or later.

This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Education department survey indicates support for state academic standards."