House Passes HB1490 on Common Core
For three years Representative Kurt Bahr has introduced legislation calling for a repeal of Common Core. Yesterday his legislation finally went somewhere. The House passed HB1490 by unanimous vote, but not before amending the bejeebers out of it.It appears the plan was to add a number of different elements to appease the factions that had formed around the common core debate. Though everyone in the Capitol knew there are problems with Common Core, many of them remained stuck on their particular issue and would not support a repeal of the standards. Admittedly Bahr’s original bill was too narrow in scope to be effective and some changes were necessary. He filed a second bill HB1708 to correct some of those deficiencies, but 1490 became the vehicle that would move forward.
The big amendment came from Representative Bahr himself which would allow districts to continue to use all the new lesson plans they have been developing for the last couple of years that are aligned to Common Core while a review committee looks at the standards and provides the State Board of Education and the legislature with recommendations. This review board, it appears, would become a standing committee of the SBE and would consist of representatives from a number of stakeholders.
This addressed sticking point number 1, the sunk cost argument. Now districts would not feel that the time and money spent to date developing new curricula aligned to common core would be lost.
Representative Thomson added an amendment calling for teacher evaluations to remain in district personnel files and not be shared outside the district or with the state. Given that teacher House Passes HB1490 on Common Core | Missouri Education Watchdog: