Local Mass. School Board Seeks Standards Rollback

Bill Filed in State Legislature Considered Long Shot

At the behest of a local school board, three lawmakers in Massachusetts have drafted a bill that would override the state board of education’s decision to adopt new common academic standards.

The measure is part of a long-shot effort by the Tantasqua Regional school board to unravel its state’s embrace of the Common Core State Standards Initiative and reverse its pledge to use common assessments designed for those standards. The bill seeks to retain Massachusetts’ own widely admired standards and its exam, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS .

The move marks the only known instance in the country of a local board challenging its state’s adoption of the standards, according to national groups that monitor state-level...