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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A bill headed to Gov. Phil Bryant's desk would establish a group to study whether Mississippi should modify or walk away from Common Core academic standards.
The House and Senate on Tuesday both passed the final version of Senate Bill 2161 (http://bit.ly/1FbDJoa ).
Bryant spokeswoman Nicole Webb said the governor will review the bill before deciding whether to sign it into law. If he signs it, a 15-member commission would make recommendations about academic standards to the state Board of Education by December.
The recommendations could be anything from minor additions, such as requiring that schools teach cursive writing, to a major overhaul, Senate Education Committee Chairman Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, said during a Senate debate Tuesday.
Mississippi has spent millions of dollars implementing Common Core, which seeks to teach students to think more analytically. The state Department of Education, however, does not use the Common Core label. Instead, it refers to Mississippi College and Career Ready Standards.
Supporters of Common Core see it as a way to increase academic achievement, but conservative opponents, including Republican Bryant, say they fear Common Core could lead to too much federal intervention in Mississippi schools.
"This has become a very political issue, and I think this is a middle way to address it," Tollison said.
Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, said Mississippi has consistently struggled to pull itself up from the bottom of national education rankings. He questioned the wisdom of moving away from Common Core without giving it a chance to show long-term results.
"I want some standards that will lift us," Jordan said.
Tollison responded: "We all want to be lifted."
Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville, said he wants to repeal Common Core but he doesn't believe a commission will recommend doing that.
"This isn't a step in the right direction," McDaniel said. "It isn't even a lean in the right direction."
In discussions to iron out differences between the versions of the bill that the House and Senate passed earlier in the session, negotiators agreed to remove a House provision that the Board of Education must adopt at least 75 percent of the commission's recommendations.
House Education Committee Chairman John Moore, R-Brandon, said in reply to a question Tuesday that lawmakers could act next year to move the state away from Common Core, even if the Board of Education does not.
"It's conceivable that we'll be right back here mandating the department do what the commission says they need to do," Moore said.
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Online: Senate Bill 2161, http://bit.ly/1FbDJoa
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