Bill to weaken Common Core dies in committee

A House committee has voted to kill a bill aimed at weakening the national academic standards known as Common Core.

As originally introduced by Sen. William Ligon (R-Brunswick), the bill would have prevented any testing of Georgia students based on national academic standards and placed restrictions on how student data could be collected and shared. Local school districts would also have been able to opt out of Common Core while a review of the standards by the state Board of Education and an advisory panel was underway.

Earlier Wednesday, Ligon spoke out against a new watered-down version of his bill that was being drafted in the committee.

“In my opinion it does not give a clear indication that we’re not going down the road of nationalized standards,” Ligon told reporters.

Other conservative groups also blasted any changes to the bill including Tanya Ditty, state director of Concerned Women for America.

“Basically the governor and House leadership have aligned themselves with the Department of Education against the local school systems,” she says.

Gov. Nathan Deal has already called for a review of the standards by the state BOE and is awaiting its report.

The bill failed on a vote of 5-13 and is likely dead for the session since Ligon says it is too complex to be tacked onto another bill.

In a statement, the Georgia Association of Educators praised the committee’s defeat of the bill saying the vote “fortifies educators current work in implementing standards that raise the academic and critical thinking bars for our children".

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