Re: [seul-edu] Standards and Requirements

[William Abernathy <william@inch.com>]

When I was in schoolbook publishing, our major push was to gain textbook 
acceptance in certain key states, among them Texas, California, and Florida. The 
conventional wisdom was that if you were accepted in Texas, you'd locked up most 
of the South, and acceptance in California meant most of the Western states. The 
economic realities of publishing militate that smaller states often have to take 
what their richer neighbors require in terms of their books, materials, and 
curricula. As you search for information on the various states, keep this in 
mind. When looking for requirements across the country, you may want to ask if 
their curriculum and requirements are harmonized with, or otherwise similar to 
those of other states.

If we can provide the technical and cultural framework for teachers to develop 
their own curricula on an open-source basis, we could provide substantial 
financial savings and local tailoring of curricula. Schoolbook publishing is a 
spendy racket, and school districts, methinks, would love a method for acquiring 
educational materials that doesn't cost anything but the shared educational 
expertise of their teachers. If we survive, not as a two year goal, but maybe as 
a five year goal, we should work towards establish a collegial free-software 
style of curriculum design that works independently of the publishing houses. 
States would get more flexibility at less cost, with higher teacher involvement 
and respect.

Anyway, I hope to be able to find out more on the matter of state standards from 
former colleagues in schoolbook publishing after the holidays.

--WA

Chris Hornbaker wrote:

> Doug Loss wrote:
> 
>>You know, compiling a list of the US standards state by state might be
>>very useful for people developing courseware and curricula.  Outside the
>>US such things are generally more centralized, I think, and adding
>>non-US standards to such a list could be as easy as adding a new US
>>state's standards.  Anyone want to have a go at compiling such a list?
>>It doesn't need to be comprehensive from the outset, but as more
>>standards are added it would become more useful. 
>>
> 
> This is what I'm working on. I'm trying to make a "common base" so that 
> people can have something to follow. I just wanted to know if there was one 
> central site I could have gone to instead of going to each states site. 
> 
> 
>>Does the US Department
>>of Education keep information on the developmental standards used in the
>>various states in some centralized location?  If so, is it available
>>over the internet?
>>
> 
> Don't know. You'd think they would, but I haven't turned anything up yet.
> 
> 
> C. Hornbaker
> 
> 
>