So, the governor has killed the “Anti-Common Core Bill” (“Bryant vetoes Common Core bill…,” April 23). Good. It was pretty much a sham reform anyway.
The surest way to accomplish nothing is to create a government commission — and that’s all the bill would have done. Yes, the Mississippi Commission on College and Career Readiness would have studied the Common Core standards and tests and reported an opinion on whether or not they should be changed.
But there was no requirement the state board consider the commissioners recommendations, much less act on them. In the end, the bill might have accomplished little more than to re-brand Common Core standards as the Mississippi College and Career Readiness Standards.
True education reform means shaking free of the federal Common Core regime so Mississippians — parents, teachers, community leaders and state and local officials — can once again take control of what is taught in schools across the state.
Creating bureaucratic commissions and re-branding federal standards as Mississippi’s own won’t get the job done. Nothing short of fully exiting Common Core will do.
- Lindsey M. Burke is the Will Skillman Fellow in Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation.
Originally appeared in The Clarion Ledger
