House Education Committee to Hold Hearing on Common Core Bill
The Georgia House Education Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on a controversial bill. Senate Bill 167 mandates a review of the Common Core education standards. But there are legislation contains several other requirements.
Hear the audio version of this story.
The bill bars Georgia from adopting the Next Generation Science Standards, set to roll out in the fall. That has puzzled some lawmakers and educators. Zoe Evans, the president of the Georgia Science Teachers Association, says Georgia helped develop the standards.
“Georgia citizens, educators participated in numerous reviews, both public and private reviews of the Next Generation Science Standards, and Georgia had a writer, and that was me,” she says.
Evans says the GSTA doesn’t have a position on adopting the standards. But the language in the bill is so restrictive, the Next Generation standards couldn’t be used as a resource to help the state craft its own standards. Evans says she hopes that part of the legislation will change.
The bill, championed by Sen. William Ligon (R-Brunswick) contains several other restrictions. It prevents the state from adopting certain assessments and severely limits data collection.
The current draft of the bill is the result of negotiations between Ligon, a handful of other senators, House leadership, and Gov. Deal’s office.
The governor this week expressed support for the bill.
“I think the format in which it was originally presented, as modified in consultation with Sen. Ligon, is one that we can all be satisfied with,” he said.
The committee will hear testimony Wednesday afternoon, but won’t vote until next week.
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