South Dakota Teaching Standards - Check them out and share your thoughts

Setting Teacher Standards for South Dakota
The Teacher Standards and Evaluation Work Group has decided to recommend adoption of Charlotte Danielson’s “Framework for Teaching” as South Dakota’s state standards for teaching. The framework outlines 22 standards in four domains:

1) Planning and Preparation
2) Classroom Environment
3) Professional Responsibilities
4) Instruction

These proposed standards will be taken before the South Dakota Board of Education on Nov. 29, 2010, for a first reading. If the board chooses, the standards would move to public hearing in early 2011.

Per Senate Bill 24, passed during the 2010 legislative session, the South Dakota Board of Education was charged with developing standards for teaching in South Dakota. A work group appointed by the Secretary of Education began meeting during the summer of 2010.

The 24-member work group recently settled on Danielson’s “Framework of Teaching” as the model for teaching standards best suited for South Dakota. That decision came after reviewing the practices of several states and the research of educational organizations and professionals.

“We chose the Danielson model for basically two reasons,” said group member and Sioux Falls Washington mathematics teacher Kira Christensen. “It was a research-based model of standards in teaching, and it matched very closely with what we, as a committee of stakeholders in education, decided are appropriate standards for teaching.”

The standards are expected to provide a clear, consistent and high quality set of measurements that can be used statewide.

Senate Bill 24 requires that standards for teaching in South Dakota be in place by July 1, 2011.

For more information, visit the South Dakota Department of Education’s website at doe.sd.gov. Click on “Teacher Standards and Evaluation Work Group” in the index.

There are three ways to make public comment regarding the proposed adoption of Danielson’s framework as South Dakota’s standards for teaching:

1) Provide testimony at the March 2011 Board of Education meeting (exact date TBA)
2) After Nov. 29, e-mail comments to TeacherStandards@state.sd.us
3) Mail comments to Dr. Melody Schopp, South Dakota Department of Education, 800 Governors Drive, Pierre, SD 57501
http://www.doe.sd.gov/secretary/teacher_standards.asp