Dive Brief:
- South Carolina Education Oversight Committee head Melanie Barton has expressed confidence that the state will have new standards ready to be reviewed by spring, approved by summer, and implemented by fall.
- In June, South Carolina became the second state, after Indiana, to drop the Common Core State Standards.
- The state's Education Oversight Committee is a nonpartisan team comprised of 18 people from the education, business, and political sector who have been selected by Gov. Nikki Haley and legislators to develop new standards.
Dive Insight:
While Barton has expressed faith that the she and the committee "will get this done," according to the Post and Courier, some educators are nervous that the short timeline won't give them enough time to get familiar with the standards and create meaningful lesson plans before the new school year.
To stop the possibility of the state just re-adopting large portions of the Common Core standards — which Indiana has been accused of doing — the new law requiring the state to adopt non-Common Core standards for the 2015-16 school year says any standards created outside of the state's education department must be approved by a joint resolution of the legislature. The bill, signed by Haley, also prohibits the state from using Smarter Balanced Common Core assessments.