Oklahoma Miracle: Common Core Officially Repealed

The hoped-for miracle happened.

After a long, remarkable effort led by Oklahoma parents and legislators, Governor Mary Fallin has signed Oklahoma’s  HB 3399 “Stop Common Core bill“ into law.

Governor Fallin stated:

“We are capable of developing our own Oklahoma academic standards that will be better than Common Core …  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.

“We cannot ignore the widespread concern of citizens, parents, educators and legislators who have expressed fear that adopting Common Core gives up local control of Oklahoma’s public schools… 

“For that reason I am signing HB 3399 to repeal and replace Common Core with Oklahoma designed and implemented education standards…  They must raise the bar – beyond what Common Core offers…  I also ‘get it’ that Oklahoma standards must be exceptional, so when businesses and military families move to Oklahoma they can rest assured knowing their children will get a great education.

… While those new standards are being written, the state standards for English and math will revert to the Oklahoma Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) standards used from 2003 to 2010. “

 

How I wish I could be a fly on the wall, listening to conversations in Oklahoma now!   What is the local Oklahoma PTA saying?  What are Oklahoma state and local school boards thinking?  And what are Oklahoma’s chambers of commerce saying now to their members?  All these figureheads have pushed pro-Common Core marketing on parents and teachers and businesses for several years, and now they are having to change their whole story.

What are the students in Oklahoma saying?  What about the teachers!?  Are they having big bonfires, using the worthless pro-common core pamphlets, professional development handouts and books?

This is truly an historic moment.

The withdrawal from Common Core by Governor Fallin  –not only a member, but the chair of the National Governors Association –the same NGA to which Bill Gates has given millions upon millions of dollars to create and implement Common Core–  is a very big deal.

And the elephant that’s been crowding the room for years now –Common Core’s pretense of academic excellence– has taken a serious hit with Governor Fallin’s acknowledgement that Oklahoma’s soon-to-be-written NEW standards “must raise the bar beyond what Common Core offers.”

Questions that will keep me up tonight:

Will Oklahoma’s new standards reintroduce Oklahoma’s children to mountains of stories and literature in unlimited amounts, re-igniting the love of language and reading?

Will Oklahoma’s new standards reinstate the traditional Algebra standards, and add higher math –beyond Common Core’s Algebra II?   Will they drop the absurd constructivist math methodology and teach math in clear, classical ways?

Will Oklahoma’s new standards require creation of an alternate college entrance exam, since the ACT, SAT, GED and AP have become Common Core aligned (corrupted)?

Will Oklahoma drop the common educational data standards (CEDS) and the common database that tracks children (SLDS) as well?

Will Oklahoma’s precedent of saying “no” to the unconstitutional moves of Secretary Duncan and President Obama also extend itself to dismiss the federally partnered, solely Common Core-aligned,  Pearson-Microsoft ed sales monstrosity?

How many thousands of not-from-Oklahoma teachers  plan to move from other states to Oklahoma –solely based on this turn of educational events?  How many parents in other states, who are exhausted from the effort of being endlessly dismissed by their state school boards and governors, are thinking what I’m thinking?

If the rest of our U.S. governors, legislators and school boards don’t see the light –and fast– it’s going to be wahoo, pack your bags and let’s move to Oklahoma.