JACKSON — A group of state senators is questioning Mississippi’s implementation of the Common Core education standards even as the state’s schools move to put those standards into place this fall.
Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, said Mississippi’s decision to set different testing goals for different racial subgroups undermines the state’s adoption of the standards, along with 44 other states. Hill wants to freeze Mississippi’s work on Common Core, if not reverse it.
Nationally, some conservative Republicans have mounted a fierce attack on Common Core, saying it sets the stage for a federal takeover of education. Until now, though, there’s been relatively little debate among Mississippi lawmakers.
Lawmakers opposed to Common Core have been marshaling their arguments in recent weeks, apparently girding for a legislative challenge next year.
State officials say Hill and others have incorrectly mashed together Mississippi’s waiver from the No Child Left Behind federal education law and the decision to adopt the standards. They also deny different testing goals equal lower standards for some children, saying the goals are meant to set realistic targets to cut underperformance in half over a few years.
“We don’t set a lower standard,” said Patrice Guilfoyle, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Education. “The reality is children are at different levels.”
Hill and other members of the state Senate’s conservative coalition disagree, noting that both the targets and Common Core were mentioned in Mississippi’s waiver application to the federal government.
The coalition is a group of 11 Republican senators who say they’ve banded together to study issues. They are generally more distant from Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves than other GOP senators.
Hill said having different targets for different groups of students by race or special education status is a backward step and is possibly even discriminatory.
No Child Left Behind, passed in 2002, set a goal for every child to become proficient in tested subjects by the end of the coming school year. No state is expected to meet that goal, and Mississippi had among the lowest scores in the nation in the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The waiver process frees states from NCLB’s requirements. Mississippi instead is focusing on improving attainment among the lowest-scoring students.
