States

Bill to Review and Revise the Common Core Approved by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon

By Andrew Ujifusa — July 14, 2014 1 min read
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Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has signed legislation that will trigger a review and possible revision of the Common Core State Standards for the 2016-17 academic year.

Nixon, a Democrat, approved House Bill 1490, which was originally designed to ban the common core outright, on July 14. The bill, originally authored by GOP Rep. Kurt Bahr, would allow the common core to remain in place while a set of work groups makes recommendations about the best standards for Missouri to use. These work groups will consist of public school parents, teachers, and others, and their recommendations will be delivered to the state board of education. The groups must complete their review and recommendations regarding new standards by Oct. 1, 2015, after a series of public hearings are held about the new standards.

While these work groups develop their recommendations and the state board considers them, the common core will remain in effect in Missouri schools for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years.

It’s unclear to what extent the common core will survive in Missouri. There’s nothing prohibiting both the work groups and the state board from largely re-adopting the common-core standards, or re-approving virtually all of the common core. Some of the members of the work groups will be appointed by legislators, a move that could be used to appease anti-common core lawmakers in the state like Bahr. (I wrote about this Missouri push-back to the common core in mid-May.)

As it happens, North Carolina is considering a similar bill that would create a new advisory committee to make recommendations about standards to the state school board. That North Carolina bill has been approved by the state Senate, and is only waiting for approval by the House before it is sent to Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican.

Read a summary of the bill below:

A version of this news article first appeared in the State EdWatch blog.