Update: Friday’s Action to Repeal Common Core in Oklahoma
Oklahoma is one Governor’s signature away from tossing Common Core. Masterful arguments for the repeal were heard on both floors of the legislature, with some maneuvering from the Speaker Jeff Hickman to keep the Senate in session while the pro-Common Core House Representatives tried to ride out the clock. Representative Jason Nelson took the lead on the House debates with additional points made by Representatives Dan Fisher, Gus Blackwell, Sally Kern, David Derby and others. It was all we could do not to whoop and holler in the Galleries!
In the Senate, we heard debate from Senator Ron Sharp, who is a 35+ year veteran teacher about the age inappropriate method by which Common Core standards were produced. Pictured is Senator Brecheen as he delivered his powerful final debate in favor of the repeal. He talked about having Oklahoma values taught in our schools, not the values of those that do not have our children’s best interest at heart. He ended his debate by reading a portion of The Bluest Eye on the Senate floor. Although he edited out the words that are not allowed on the Senate floor, Senators were grabbing their children who were visiting on the last day of session to usher them out. Brecheen made the glaring point that the people who considered this material acceptable in our schools are not the people we want creating the standards by which we teach Oklahoma children.
From Senators Josh Brecheen and Anthony Sykes press release: “House Bill 3399 is a true repeal of Common Core and enables us to establish high quality standards specifically crafted to the needs of Oklahoma schools by Oklahomans, not out-of-state interest groups. With this bill, we’re pressing the pause button and guaranteeing to teachers that next year they will be able to teach the same math and English content they taught this year, until new standards are established in 2016. Those new standards will have to be approved by the Legislature thus bringing representative government into the process to ensure they won’t be a ‘copy and paste’ version of common core under a new name.”
Below is the article from the Capitol reporter, Pat McGuigan from Capitol Beat who mentions that Fallin did not commit to sign or veto the measure. We have her on record saying that she will sign the measure, and have been thanking her in advance for that. However, since this is her baby from the National Governors Association, and they made her chair to empower her to see this through, if our stop Common Core buddies from across the United States want to also thank her in advance for her signature, that would be greatly appreciated!
Local: (405) 521-2342 Fax: (405) 521-335 or email at http://www.ok.gov/governor/Contact_the_Governor/ and sign the petition here along with people and organizations fighting to stop Common Core: http://ngaendcommoncore.com/#Sign
NEWS UPDATE from Pat McGuigan at Capitol Beat: Common Core repeal heads to Fallin’s desk
http://www.capitolbeatok.com/reports/news-update-common-core-repeal-heads-to-fallin-s-desk
