After a year of reviewing the standards formally known as Common Core, the New Jersey State Board of Education approved a revision to language arts literacy and math standards and a renaming of all content standards under the umbrella of the New Jersey Student Learning Standards bringing to a close a controversial and confusing six years.
The benefit to the arts education community is significant. No longer will arts educators and supporters have to argue about which standards are required. Having both Common Core State Standards for two content areas and then the Core Curriculum Content Standards for seven other content areas led to widespread confusion and misunderstandings regarding which standards were required. Many education leaders wrongly believed that only the Common Core standards were required leading to art program reductions and/or neglect. The new naming brings all of the content standards under one roof and does away with the idea that “only common core matters.”
Now all content standards matter!
Under this name change only the Language Arts Literacy and Math Standards were revised (as part of the Governor’s plan to move away from Common Core). The revisions will go into effect for the 2017/2018 schoolyear. All of the other standards remain the same… just with a new name!
For the Visual and Performing Arts Standards, the current standards will remain in force until the current revision process is completed and adopted by the State Board of Education expected sometime in mid 2017.