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State Board of Education to Map Out Common Core Review

September 26th, 2013

The state board of education is expected to set guidelines Thursday for a review of a set of education standards called the Common Core. Governor Nathan Deal wrote a letter to the board last month requesting the review. Hear the broadcast version of this story.

The governor said he made the request because members of the General Assembly expressed concerns about the standards. Deal, a Republican, has faced opposition from members of his own party over the Common Core. But when the criticism began, the governor defended the standards.

“I have an idea that for those who claim that Common Core is ‘dumbing down’ the standards, that the test scores may demonstrate the exact opposite of that,” Deal told reporters. “I don’t think any of us want to dumb anything down; I certainly don’t.”

The intention of the Common Core is to do the opposite. The idea is to provide a common set of expectations so that individual states can't dumb down their standards. That point was reinforced by Education Secretary Arne Duncan on a visit to Atlanta this week.

“States have shown tremendous courage and leadership in raising standards,” Duncan said. “Again, historically, they’ve dummied them down. And I think that’s one of the most insidious things that can happen in education is to lie to children and tell them they are ready when they’re not even close, when they’re not even in the game.”

Although Duncan’s department supports the Common Core, the standards are not federally-mandated. They were developed and adopted by states.

The board is expected to establish parameters for the review at today’s meeting.