The Associated Press reports that Missouri is getting rid of the controversial Common Core educational standards and replacing them with alternative standards.
Common Core covers only math and English, while the new Missouri standards will also cover social studies and science. “Major changes include more emphasis on research in language arts and reorganizing math benchmarks for kindergarten through second grade,” the AP says. Elementary students will be expected to learn cursive writing.
Schools will have to design their own curricula to help students meet the standards.
“Much of the opposition in Missouri centered on concern that the standards were adopted without enough local input,” the AP says. The new changes were proposed by groups of teachers and parents.
Anne Gassel, an anti-Common Core leader in Missouri, said the process by which standards were adopted mattered most. “Whether they’re the same as Common Core or not was not what was really critical to us. What was critical to us was that there was a process in place that would allow the state to set its own standards,” Gassel told the AP.
Now the state has to design its own tests around the standards. Those tests won’t be administered until the 2017 to 2018 school year.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
