CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The chairperson of the House Education Committee says she’s “extremely disappointed” with a move in the Senate Education Committee to block the immediate repeal of the Common Core education standards in West Virginia.
The version of the bill that was pending in the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday would keep the Common Core standards in place while a two-year study of the effectiveness of those standards, what West Virginia’s K-12 students are taught, is conducted.
As part of that comprehensive review on math and English standards, the state Department of Education would host public meetings on Common Core. Parents, teachers, school principals and others would have input in other ways as well.
“We adopted Common Core in 2010,” said House Education Committee Chair Amanda Pasdon (R-Monongalia, 51) of the Senate rewrite.
“How much more time is needed and how much more educational opportunity are we going to lose? How many more generations are we going to sacrifice before we decide this doesn’t work?”
Last month, the House approved a bill repealing Common Core, effective this July, with a 75-19 bipartisan vote. “It showed a true movement that we were representing the requests of West Virginians, of parents and educators across the state, and it certainly took a whole new turn (on Monday),” Pasdon said.
During Monday’s Senate Education Committee meeting, Committee Chair Dave Sypolt (R-Preston, 14) said pulling Common Core now would be “disastrous” for West Virginia’s education standards.
“Keeping Common Core would be disastrous,” Pasdon argued on Tuesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.” “As we continue on down the path of implementation of Common Core, we will only continue to see greater challenges. We’ll only continue to see greater concerns.”
Sypolt said the study will allow time for concerns about Common Core to be fully addressed, a move Dr. Michael Martirano, state superintendent of schools, applauded.
It was not immediately clear when the Senate Finance Committee would take up the reworked bill.
If the Senate passes the new version of the bill and sends it back to the House, Pasdon said she would not accept the changes.
Rejection from the House would then put the proposed Common Core legislation into a conference committee made up of both Senate and House members in the closing days of the 2015 Regular Legislative Session.
Saturday is the final day.