Common Core repeal bill may expand to include science standards
by Ryan Quinn, Staff Writer
Gazette-Mail file photo
A newly proposed version of the Common Core repeal bill that's being sponsored by West Virginia House of Delegates leaders would also ditch the state's upcoming new science standards.
Lawmakers revealed a committee substitute for House Bill 4014 in a House Education Committee meeting Wednesday. The original bill was filed last week with Education Chairman Paul Espinosa, R-Jefferson, Majority Leader Daryl Cowles, R-Morgan, and nine other Republicans as sponsors.
The substitute, which committee members haven't yet approved and plan to take up again at 9 a.m. Thursday, would expand the bill to not only require a repeal of West Virginia's math and English language arts K-12 education standards, which are similar to Common Core, but also stop the state from implementing the non-Common Core science standards.
The state Board of Education approved those science standards in April, with the intent that students would begin learning them next school year. The school board's April vote came with amendments to the few proposed standards that dealt with teaching about global warming, despite significant local and national criticism of previous alterations to the climate change standards that the board retracted amid the controversy.
Still, groups that denounced the previous changes — they said they cast unwarranted doubt on the scientific consensus that fossil fuel emissions are driving global warming — said the new ones were still progress. The new standards would be the first time Mountain State students would be required to learn about the evidence for human-influenced climate change in mandatory courses.
The Common Core repeal bill would mandate that the state revert back to its pre-Common Core standards next school year and would require statewide standardized tests next school year to be aligned to those old standards. The state uses Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced standardized tests. However, were the repeal to pass, new math and English standards would be required by the 2017-18 school year.
It also would require the state to remove from its list of approved instructional resources, such as textbooks, any resources “that have the primary purpose of teaching Common Core State Standards.” But if a textbook taught a standard that happened to be in both Common Core and the new standards West Virginia would be required to adopt, that textbook could be listed and used by West Virginia school systems.
The committee substitute version also would require the state to keep its existing science standards, instead of moving to new ones. But, unlike for the math and English standards, it doesn't go on to lay out a process on how the science standards could be changed.
The science standards aren't based on Common Core, a national standards blueprint that more than 40 states have adopted. The science standards are based on another national standards blueprint, called the Next Generation Science Standards, which, nonetheless, has connections to the Common Core math and English standards.
When asked why the committee substitute of the bill he's co-sponsoring is now also targeting the science standards, Espinosa said that while the Legislature is dealing with repealing Common Core, he didn't want the state to roll out the new standards and then have to repeal them.
“I just think it's prudent that, while we're conducting this review, that we include those standards, as well,” he said.
Delegate Jim Butler, R-Mason, is the lead sponsor of the bill. During lawmakers' failed attempt to repeal Common Core standards last year, Butler successfully added an amendment to a repeal bill that he said also was aimed at repealing the science standards. At the time, Butler said he didn't believe human greenhouse gas emissions are a major driver of climate change, and said he opposed the standards for their teaching of global warming.
Wednesday's two-hour discussion didn't include much talk about the proposed science standards repeal. Instead, delegates focused on the math and English implications, including the part of the bill requiring the state to go back to its pre-Common Core standards before having new ones ready for the 2017-18 school year.
“I'm having a little bit of difficulty finding where the logic is on that,” said Delegate Joe Statler, R-Monongalia.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.
Frankly, I like the part of Common Core that deals with standards and nationwide testing. Since the quality of our education system is in the pits and getting worse every year, it is necessary to have standards to meet and tests to show if we are reaching those standards. I can understand why bad teachers, or those better teachers who use inept teaching methods, would want to conceal their inadequate performance. This is even truer in West Virginia where our children are in the bottom 20%. If you ignore the problem, it won't simply go away, it will get worse.
ReplyDeleteYou need to look into common core and see whos making money off it and what the standards really are.
DeleteThe Road Runner...
That is easy Road Runner - the textbook companies. common Core is just a small, small, small issue in the education are na. The legislative intrusion into areas of education where they are not even knowledgeable and will not seek opinions and expertise of the educators is the big problem. The biggest issue now in education, the dwindling funding for all programs. Common Core is a minuscule issue.
ReplyDeleteSeek opinions of the educators? That is what the problem is. The legislature can do no worse than the mess that "educators" have created. West Virginia is 46th in education in this country. America is not even in the top two dozen countries in literacy, science and math, and it gets worse every year.
ReplyDelete