Wisconsin, a state of stark political contrasts, is the most recent state to face a contentious debate about whether to move forward with Common Core. A state with a strong base of liberals as well as one of the most notable conservative governors in Scott Walker, Wisconsin adopted Common Core three years ago and has moved forward with plans to implement testing aligned with Common Core next year. However, a new bill being discussed in the state senate and house may jeopardize that.
Here is a brief explanation of the bill from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
The latest version calls for the creation of a Model Academic Standards Board co-chaired by the state superintendent, which would include six appointees from the governor and four from the state superintendent.
The bill calls for members of the board to come from different backgrounds, such as a university professor and school principal, but it also calls for members to be appointed from private voucher schools, even though those private schools receiving taxpayer money are not beholden to following statewide academic standards for public schools.
Under the bill, the board would submit proposals for standards in subjects such as reading math and science to the state superintendent, who would then submit recommendations to a joint legislative committee.
Lawmakers on that committee would have the power to reject the superintendent’s recommendations and pick the board’s recommendations instead.
Essentially, those in the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, including State Superintendent Tony Evers, fear the worst. “As soon as I saw this, I gasped. If we thought the Common Core State Standards were political before, this ratchets it up about 1,000 percent,” Evers said. There is the very real fear that conservative governor Walker could downplay the possibility yet use this new law as a subtle means by which to end Common Core in Wisconsin.
Walker and conservative government leaders in Wisconsin reject such a notion:
“I think Wisconsin standards should be higher than where the discussion is nationally and I think they should be set by people in Wisconsin and not people outside the state and I think this offers a mechanism to do that,” Walker said.
The governor dismissed criticism as what he called a “worst-case scenario.”
“In the end you’re not going to have the debate topic by topic on the floor of the Assembly or the Senate. You’re going to have this panel working on it for the next year,” Walker said.
The panel “isn’t just the willy-nilly selection of people. It’s people who have specific backgrounds in education and curriculum,” he said.
For now, the bill has been delayed, but the debate in state governments over Common Core seems unlikely to abate anytime soon.
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