College & Workforce Readiness

Common-Standards “Mystery State": Not Much of a Mystery

By Catherine Gewertz — June 30, 2010 1 min read
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We told you yesterday that one state had adopted the common standards but hadn’t made it public yet. It turns out that this state is Wyoming, but it isn’t that they’re not “willing” to make a public announcement, as we said yesterday. It’s just that they haven’t been able to yet.

The Wyoming state board adopted the common standards on June 16. When we heard about that on June 22, we called to check, and education department spokesman Tim Lockwood cheerfully confirmed it. (We told you about that here, too.) But since the adoption, many things have gotten in the way of composing a press release (senior education department staff tied up with a legislative “recalibration” of the state funding formula, among other things). The department agrees that the adoption is “a big deal” that needs an announcement, Lockwood said, and officials plan to hold a news conference about it next week.

Notice of the board meeting went out to the press on June 9, and Lockwood also posted on the department’s website the “board packets” that hold all the accompanying information about the items to be considered at the meeting.

Despite the notice, however, no reporters attended the meeting, Lockwood said, and we can’t find any coverage of the common-standards adoption in the Wyoming media.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Curriculum Matters blog.