Oklahoma can come up with better academic standards than the "tainted" federal Common Core, Gov. Mary Fallin said yesterday as she signed legislation repealing the standards. The governor—who was still defending the standards as recently as January—said federal overreach and meddling had become too much, Politico reports. "President Obama and Washington bureaucrats have usurped Common Core in an attempt to influence state education standards. The results are predictable," she said. "What should have been a bipartisan policy is now widely regarded as the president’s plan to establish federal control of curricula, testing and teaching strategies." Indiana has also repealed the standards, which were adopted voluntarily by 45 states in 2009.
Business and education groups slammed the decision—which means schools will have to revert immediately to pre-Common Core standards—as a political move that won't benefit the state's students. "This decision will throw many schools into chaos as they prepare for a new academic year," the chief of the state's School Boards Association tells the Oklahoman. "It also represents a significant waste of the time and resources schools have spent on the transition over the last four years. This decision is not good for Oklahoma’s schools, and it’s not good for Oklahoma’s kids." The state superintendent, however, says Oklahoma will be better off without the "difficult and inflexible" federal standards and her agency is ready to "hit the ground running" to create better ones. (More Common Core stories.)
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