BATON ROUGE, La. – The Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) today announced that the online public comment portal for the K-12 Louisiana Student Standards for Social Studies (Standards) will reopen from February 8 through February 22, 2022.
On December 14, 2021, the LDOE presented all public comments collected during the months of October and November 2021 on the revised set of Standards to the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). All stakeholder public comment on the Standards, summary documents, and the BESE presentation deck are available in the Standards Review Committee Library. During the December 2021 meeting, BESE passed a motion that charged LDOE with reviewing public comment in order to submit a refined set of Standards to BESE in March.
Over the past two months, the LDOE has worked across multiple teams to uphold the original revision goals while addressing concerns made evident in public comments. For example, the 2nd grade U.S. history survey course was extended into 3rd grade, and all Standards K-12 were revised to clarify precise content and provide transparency. Also, the high school U.S. history course was also extended into a survey of U.S. history from 1607 to 2008.
“We are thankful to the citizens of Louisiana for their substantive input throughout the Standards revision process,” said Dr. Cade Brumley, State Superintendent of Education. “Their continued feedback has served as a constant reminder of what makes the American spirit so exceptional and why an engaged, informed citizenry is essential to protecting, sustaining, and improving upon our constitutional republic.”
The goals of the revision process were to shift the Standards toward an approach that balances the acquisition of disciplinary skills along with content knowledge, to create a more coherent sequence of content, to strengthen knowledge and skills at the elementary level to ensure students are prepared for secondary and postsecondary work, and to better integrate the historical perspectives of people from different backgrounds.
All stakeholders have the opportunity to comment on the refined Standards using an online form in the Standards Review Committee Library until February 22, 2022. The form is available in the Standards Review Committee Library. The draft Standards and public comment received will be presented to BESE at the Academic Goals and Instructional Improvement Committee on March 8, 2022.
