CHARLESTON, W.Va. — “Our teachers and our students don’t deserve this continuous, relentless disruption,” said state Board of Education President Mike Green during a Thursday public hearing in the House Chamber after several speakers opposed repeal of the Common Core/Next Generation teaching standards.
The legislation (HB 4014) would prevent the state school board from implementing Common Core and assessments, but Green said lawmakers need to back off and let the standards work.
“It’s an insult and an affront to the hardworking, under-paid, under-appreciated teachers in our state who are intimately involved in the creation of these standards,” he said.
The board repealed Common Core last December and approved a new set of standards, recommended by state School Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano, called the the College and Career Readiness standards. The board was willing to work with the Legislature to improve the standards, only if it didn’t disrupt the educational system, but Green said “enough is enough.”
“Decisions as to standards that is what we expect our students to know at the end of any particular grade must be made by professional educators, not politicians,” he said.
Resident Ginger Noley also opposed legislative control of the standards saying teachers should have the right to teach what they believe would be effective.
“They’re proud to be educators,” Noley said. “But when they’re browbeat into doing things that they don’t like and don’t want to teach and feel that it’s detrimental to the children, why be there? Why put yourself through that when you’re not being able to really help the children? That’s what it’s all about.”
Angela Summers spoke of action taken by Kentucky citizens to repeal the same academic standards by electing “an anti-Common Core” governor last year.
“Our state board members have called us right-wingers with a political agenda,” she said. “These citizens, these parents do not have a political agenda. They are simply fed up with state board and politicians who have violated their trust and put their kids’ education in a downward spiral.”
With the over 600 teacher vacancies the state faces, Christine Campbell, president of AFT-West Virginia, said that’s more of an issue than Common Core.
“We need to attract and retain highly qualified teachers for our classrooms, not waste money debating issues that won’t help our teachers teach,” Campbell said.
The bill is before the House Education Committee. Lawmakers could be taking a vote on the bill in the coming weeks.