Common Core Retreat

Two More Governors Turning Against Common Core, Posted on July 20, 2014 Written by Freedomoutpost.com

Two more state gov­er­nors have hopped on the anti-Common Core band­wagon, urg­ing either a sec­ond look at it or push­ing for out­right repeal.

Gov. Gary Her­bert of Utah ordered his attor­ney gen­eral to con­duct a review of the con­tro­ver­sial multi-state edu­ca­tion stan­dards Thurs­day, while Wis­con­sin Gov. Scott Walker announced that he wants the state’s leg­is­la­ture to repeal the stan­dards when it recon­venes next January.

 “Today, I call on the mem­bers of the state Leg­is­la­ture to pass a bill in early Jan­u­ary to repeal Com­mon Core and replace it with stan­dards set by peo­ple in Wis­con­sin,” Walker said in a state­ment reported by the Mil­wau­kee Journal-Sentinel on Thurs­day. His open oppo­si­tion is a step up from the past. In Jan­u­ary he said that the stan­dards war­ranted reex­am­i­na­tion, but oth­er­wise Walker has said lit­tle about Com­mon Core at all.

A bill was intro­duced this past year seek­ing to pull Wis­con­sin out of Com­mon Core, but failed after gain­ing almost no trac­tion in the leg­is­la­ture. If Walker is suc­cess­fully reelected in Novem­ber, his newly expressed sup­port could pro­vide a repeal push with much greater momentum.

Walker’s announce­ment, how­ever, also high­lighted con­tin­u­ing inter­nal divi­sions within the Repub­li­can Party on edu­ca­tion pol­icy. State Super­in­ten­dent Tony Evers com­plained that Walker’s state­ments made the state’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem appear unsta­ble and chaotic, while state rep­re­sen­ta­tive Steve Kestell said Walker’s state­ments were purely polit­i­cal pos­tur­ing in an elec­tion year.

“The idea that they’d just be able to replace the stan­dards at the begin­ning of the leg­isla­tive ses­sion is absurd,” Kestell told the Journal-Sentinel.

Herbert’s announce­ment was less dra­matic than Walker’s, with the focus being on giv­ing Com­mon Core a sec­ond look rather than imme­di­ately seek­ing its repeal. He said Attor­ney Gen­eral Sean Reyes would review the stan­dards to make sure they did not inor­di­nately sur­ren­der Utah’s con­trol over it’s own edu­ca­tion system.

Her­bert also announced that a new web­site will allow Utah cit­i­zens to leave com­plaints about Com­mon Core for the governor’s office, and also said he is cre­at­ing a spe­cial com­mit­tee of pol­icy experts who will review the stan­dards’ appro­pri­ate­ness from a higher edu­ca­tion per­spec­tive. That review, he said, could result in any num­ber of pos­si­ble recommendations.

“I don’t want to pre­sup­pose the out­come of this review, but I want to empha­size that Dr. Kendell and his team of experts may in fact rec­om­mend some stan­dards be removed, some stan­dards might be made more rig­or­ous and some stan­dards might not be changed at all,” Her­bert said dur­ing a speech Thursday.

Momen­tum has recently been build­ing against Com­mon Core, par­tic­u­larly on the right. South Car­olina, Indi­ana and Okla­homa have dropped the stan­dards com­pletely this year, while Mis­souri and North Car­olina have passed bills that keep the stan­dards in place for now, but estab­lish com­mis­sions with the power to change them.

Her­bert said that he was partly moti­vated by a hope that a detailed review could reduce ongo­ing feud­ing between Com­mon Core sup­port­ers, who describe the stan­dards as merely broad goals that leave sub­stan­tial con­trol with local school dis­tricts, and oppo­nents who describe the stan­dards as a fed­eral takeover of education.

“What­ever has been done in the past has not resolved the dis­pute,” Her­bert said. “There’s too much ani­mus out there with the groups on all sides of the issue and it’s just time for us to kind of push the pause but­ton and say, ‘Let’s reeval­u­ate, let’s ascer­tain that we have Utah standards.’”

Related Posts

• Local School Boards Are Being Replaced, Stripped Of Power
• Why I Am Against the Com­mon Core Standards
• Ras­mussen: Com­mon Core Sup­port Plum­mets Among Par­ents with School-Age Children
  Source: http://agenda21news.com/2014/07/two-governors-turning-common-core/
  Comments
  Common Core was dropped in South Car­olina and Indi­ana and Wisconsin’s governor is calling for repeal.  Okla­homa Missouri. North Carolina have passed bills to establish commissions to investigate it and Utah is headed there. The Georgia legislature blocked its Common Core repeal bills this past Spring, but Anti-Common Core State School Superintendent Richard Woods won in the Republican Primary run-off.
  Common Core is on the way out, like Obamacare, Amnesty and a dozen other unpopular federal scams.
  Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader