Centennial Middle School teachers Meghan Rowe Waschbusch and Crystal Sabatke-Smith were recently selected among 700 applicants to serve on the Colorado Department of Education’s Model Content Standards Review Committee.
Two hundred-twenty people were chosen to represent the committee as a whole based on expertise and commitment to education in their area. Waschbusch was selected to serve on the science subcommittee, while Smith was chosen for reading and writing.
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“This is a really unique opportunity to be part of a group that will change the face of what Colorado education looks like,” Smith said.
Waschbusch and Smith began meeting with their respective groups in January, where they have reviewed current standards and assessed how to improve them. Waschbusch said no changes were set in stone for any subcommittee yet, but that the public could find out what each committee was talking about online on the CDE Web site, www.cde.state.co.us.
“We want them to guide us because this is who we are doing it for,” Waschbusch said. “We’re doing it for the students, but we want parents to have input because it’s their child.”
Once subcommittees create an outline of improvements at the end of March, CDE representatives will travel around the state and present the new standards to each district, as well as the general public.
Each committee has been working on ways to improve standards for each grade, starting at the high school level. Waschbusch said college professors have provided their input as to what they would like to see students already know when they attend college. Feedback from professors and parents has all been considered during the process.
It has been more than a decade since education standards have been significantly changed and CDE wants Colorado students to be achieving at the highest level possible after Gov. Bill Ritter created the Colorado Achievement Plan in 2008. Both teachers said that while they dedicated their personal time to the cause, they were happy to help update education.
“The CDE motto is ‘fewer, clearer and higher,’” Smith said. “I agree with it —because I want to see Colorado have the highest literacy rate in the country.”
Waschbusch said she was looking forward to help better state standards as well.
“This is an incredible opportunity to improve things here,” she said.
You can contact Matt Lindberg via e-mail at mattl@montrosepress.com
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