The Georgia Senate Education and Youth Committee unanimously passed SB 167 a bill that would repeal the Common Core State Standards in the state. The bill introduced by State Senator William Ligon, Jr. (R-Brunswick) will establish the process for reviewing the standards, allows local districts to go back to the previous, superior GA standards in the interim, and establishes strong protections for student data privacy.
The House Education Committee Chair, State Representative Brooks Coleman (R-Duluth) promised support of the bill prior to the Senate committee vote. He promises clear sailing in his committee.
It looks like this bill will likely pass the State Legislature. The Athens Banner-Herald reports that this move and a poll just released on the Common Core will put a lot of pressure on Governor Nathan Deal.
Apache Political Communications released a poll showing that 42 percent of regular GOP primary voters oppose Common Core, and that 77 percent of those opposed would agree to higher taxes instead.
Most troubling for the governor is that nearly 8 percent of those opposed would vote for Democrat Sen. Jason Carter over Deal in November because of it.
“Based on the results from the last governor’s race, Carter needs to switch 9.5 percent of Deal’s 2010 voters to his side in order to win,” said pollster Fred Hicks, president of The Hicks Evaluation Group. “While that seemed like a remote possibility at the time of Sen. Carter’s announcement, these results make this race one to watch.”
The poll found just 30 percent of Republicans support Common Core, and another 27 percent are undecided. It was conducted by Hicks and Apache Feb. 13-16 among 923 people who had voted in the last two Republican primaries and said they intend to vote in the next one. It has a 3.25 percent margin of error.
Photo credit: Patrick Noddy (CC-By-SA 3.0)
Note: I originally linked to last year’s version of SB 167 as that was what was provided on the website. That has been corrected along with the description of what this bill does. The title has been changed to reflect this. It’s a good bill, but it is not a flat-out repeal bill. I apologize for the error.
The state committee of the Georgia Republican Party and the Republican National Committee have both passed resolutions against common core. If republican members of the Georgia General Assembly do not support SB167, then they should resign from the party. It should also become clear to everyone that Georgia would be showing official signs of becoming an Oligarchy centered on the needs of the educational-industrial complex.
Beware of new language pressing the state toward the Red Clay Consortium. This consortium is common core and Race To The Top re-branded as a regional mandate instead of a national mandate.
So, which is it phd1. Vote for #SB167, which is a vote for Gov. Deal’s “#Huckabee inspired “Red Clay Consortium”, which is still #CommonCore lite, or vote against #SB167 and be deemed worthy of immediate dismissal from the ranks of the esteemed Georgia GOP? How about option 3: Eject the state from the entire tyrannical takeover of Georgia’s educational system.
Sen. Ligon started his efforts in 2012 for a year’s delay of implementation of Common Core so the state could analyze what all the ramifications would be. That effort died in the Senate. In 2013, he went for a full withdrawal from Common Core in the Senate. His efforts were squashed again. As he went into the session this year, there was a little more cooperation, but very strong messages from leadership that any bill with full withdrawal of 180 degrees within one year’s time was not going to get passed due to the fact that local districts could not adapt that quickly. Grassroots activists also learned that another bill was being prepared in the House that would have been so weak that it may have simply codified the language in the Governor’s Executive Order. It was clear that something would most likely be passed this year, but who would be in control of that effort mattered. SB 167 provides a process for Georgia to have an orderly exit from the Common Core, prevents national or multi-state type standards or assessments, and provides protections over student data that do not yet exist in Georgia law and are desperately needed now that FERPA has been gutted. I’m sure the bill does not satisfy those who insist on an “all or nothing” approach, but it certainly provides the tools and a working foundation that Georgians need to get out of this national experiment. If passed, that would be better than what any other state in the union has been able to accomplish.