Wyoming School Board of Education to Evaluate Education Standards Review Process

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (News Release) – The Wyoming State Board of Education (SBE) will conduct an evaluation of the current process used to develop and revise state standards. The board agreed to form a steering committee of SBE members to oversee the assessment at its regular meeting on January 20, 2022.

Following a presentation on the history of the standards and the evolution of the standards development process over the past thirty years, the board identified the main questions to be addressed by the assessment. These include the volume of state standards relative to teaching time, methods of collecting and using stakeholder input, and innovative approaches to developing standards that would positively impact challenges. faced by teachers and students in the classroom. The assessment will also review potential updates to existing design criteria and evaluate the current structure and format of state standards to ensure recent changes work in all standard areas. The board emphasized working with the Wyoming Department of Education to complete the assessment.

“The Wyoming State Board appreciates the hard work of the many standards review committee participants and department staff who work tirelessly to support the development of the standards,” said SBE Chairman Ryan Fuhrman. “Our assessment is to find improvements to the current system that can lead to better engagement with stakeholders, more unified standards across all content areas, and increased ability for schools to honor what we’ve heard in our profile of graduate listening sessions.”

Public testimony received during the meeting focused on the number of standards in the 10 content areas and concerns about the time required for students to master the standards. Other public comments on state standards may be directed to the SBE here.

Information on future meetings of the SBE is available at Board Docs. Minutes and documents from previous meetings can be viewed on the website. Follow the SBE on Facebook and Twitter.

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