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Another blow against the edifice of common educational standards that is rapidly collapsing – this time by a senator from the state of Alabama who suddenly, but thankfully, changed position while he was considering to run for the US Senate.
The reformers against the common core and for a more local control of education will surely accept this timely conversion with gratitude, regardless of the factors that motivated it.
In February, I reported on the measures taken by the new Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, to remove Common Core from his state, making it the fifth state to repeal the standards after passing them. Alabama is about to be the sixth, as it should be.
Critical critics have correctly stated that "reading standards devalue classical literature and encourage cultural values that are antithetical to tradition and decency; that mathematics standards encourage complicated and innovative approaches while discouraging teaching methodologies that have been functioning for centuries; and, among other various disadvantages, it discouraged cursive writing, even though science conclusively showed that cursive facilitated the development of the young brain. "
In Alabama, despite its reputation for academic backwardness, K-12 education in 2011 ranked 25th out of 50 US states, according to Education Week. Alas, it was the year of the adoption of the Core. After seven years of Common Core in 2018, Alabama's score dropped to 43rd.
Education policy in Alabama is usually the responsibility of an elected board of education, but any piece of legislation, duly signed, can void the board's policy. The board, dominated by the public school, refused to repeal the Core even as test scores dropped.
When anti-core activists sought help from the state legislature, legislative support for the repeal on several occasions seemed powerful, and the relevant Senate committee has already passed a bill on the repeal. However, each time, Senate Speaker Del Marsh, a Republican closely linked to the Alabama Business Council, which was Core's biggest stimulus, refused to allow any repealing bill to be repealed. In fact, Marsh was the most important savior of the nucleus, even though the problems of the common core were within everyone's reach.
Now, however, Marsh is openly considering a candidacy for the US Senate in 2020. A week ago, he suddenly announced that he was introducing a bill to repeal Common Core. He explained that in previous years, it seemed appropriate to rely on the state board, but with test results in such low state, "we can not continue in this direction.
Divided in two, Marsh pushed his bill in front of the committee and on the floor, where he was adopted Thursday with a strong majority of 23 votes against 7. The approval of the House, in this conservative Republican state including the GOP has officially requested the repeal of the Core for years, seems assured.
Marsh's bill would have Alabama reinstate the temporary standards it had used in the transition to the core curriculum a decade ago, while asking the state education council to establish new ones. standards in time for the 2020-2021 school year. Students whose performance has suffered since 2010 trying to learn convoluted approaches to arithmetic will of course not be able to recover their lost years – Marsh is partly responsible – but future students in Alabama will benefit a serious effort to develop constructive and decipherable standards. .
Good choices are always better late than never. Marsh's late leadership could not only lead to better education in Alabama, but also maintain the momentum for more sensible norms to be adopted state by state, rather than through a national pact of educators.
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