It looks like Kentucky could be the first state to approve the common standards. The state board of education apparently has scheduled a joint meeting in February to approve the standards. And that’s even before a first public draft of the K-12 standards is out.
How could this be? Well, the draft is circulating among state officials for feedback before its first public release, which could come late this month or early in February. (You might remember that these are the grade-level standards. The college- and career-ready standards have already gone through a couple of public iterations.)
Folks at the CCSSO and the National Governors Association, the other group co-leading the common standards work, said they didn’t know of any other state planning to adopt the standards on a faster timeline than Kentucky.
The head of one of the organizations leading the common-standards work, the Council of Chief State Schools Officers, has deep roots in Kentucky. Gene Wilhoit, CCSSO’s executive director, was commissioner of education there before assuming his job at the helm of the state school officers group.