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States are reconsidering their support for the Common Core standards. In recent weeks, legislators in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and South Dakota have attempted to pedal back their state’s involvement with the standards.
Noted The Washington Post: “[T]he [Common Core] standards are meeting with growing resistance for reasons including questions about who was behind the initiative and whether they are better than previous standards.”
Last week, Indiana’s state senate passed legislation sponsored by state senator Scott Schneider (R). Originally intended to pull Indiana out of the Common Core standards completely, “now, it halts implementation until the state Board of Education conducts public hearings in each of the state’s nine congressional districts.”
In addition, Schneider’s proposal “requires the state to conduct an in-depth cost analysis of moving to the national standards” as well as “to put parents on the state’s academic standards committee.”
Last month, hundreds filled Indiana’s state capitol for a hearing on the Common Core. Testifying was former Texas state commissioner of education, Robert Scott. Texas is one of five states that has not adopted the Common Core standards. Scott said that Texas rejected the standards because it became clear that the Common Core movement “was about control, some from the federal government, and some from some education reformers that readily admit that the goal is to create national markets for education service providers and vendors.”
Earlier this month Alabama withdrew from Common Core’s two testing consortia—the consortia creating the new tests that will align with the Common Core, replacing current state tests. According to the Heartland Institute, “The Alabama decision responds to Senate Joint Resolution 49, which the legislature passed last May. It encourages the state board of education to ‘take all steps it deems appropriate…to retain complete control over Alabama’s academic standards, curriculum, instruction, and testing system.’”
In addition, in Georgia, state senator William Ligon (R) introduced a bill that would pull Georgia out of the Common Core, and last week South Dakota’s House Education Committee passed legislation to “require the Board of Education to obtain legislative approval before adopting any further Common Core Standards.”
South Dakota state representative Jim Bolan (R), sponsor of the bill, said:
One of the founding principles of American education is that states and local citizens will determine how their schools are going to be run and what will be taught in each local entity. The Common Core Standards movement is an attempt to circumvent this long-standing tradition of American education.
Well said, Mr. Bolan. Parents, teachers, and local leaders should make decisions about what is taught in the classroom. States should reject Washington’s push for national education standards and work to improve their schools through reforms at the state and local level.