The Arizona State Board of Education voted to sever ties with Common Core standards Monday morning. Despite the action, it won’t change the current standards being taught.
During the comment period before the vote brought by Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas, many of the board members said the move was “politically motivated."
Arizona adopted these state-led standards in 2010. Douglas ran for election on the platform of eliminating of Common Core.
“Common Core is a very particular set of standards that comes with some pretty stringent requirements,” Douglas said, declaring the vote was a victory. “The board is just saying we can take care of Arizona children.”
The board voted 6-2 to drop the education standards. Arizona State Board of Education President Greg Miller cast one of the dissenting votes. He said this decision has little effect on students and teachers and is upper-level political strategizing.
“I see it as a reckless attempt at a wrong point in time,” Miller said. “We already adopted the policy and moved forward with a complete review of the both the math and language arts standards at the request of the governor.”
This vote comes at the same time parents are starting to get the formal results of their children’s first statewide test under these Common Core standards.
Updated 10/26/2015 at 5:08 p.m.
