A Vero Beach lawmaker wants the rollout of Florida’s Common Core academic standards put on hold, at least until the Legislature can assess how much it will cost.
State Rep. Debbie Mayfield filed a bill this week to prevent the state from implementing Common Core, a group of national standards designed to help students prepare for college. Prior to Mayfield’s proposal, Common Core was to be fully enacted in Florida by the 2014-2015 school year. For this academic year, some grades would adopt Common Core; for others, it would be the last year of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
“We need to come up with our own testing. Let’s come up with our own standards, so we have the ability to change anytime we want to change it,” Mayfield told Colleen Wixon of TCPalm.
Critics of the new national standards are concerned about both implementation costs and the amount of data held by the government from Common Core assessments. On such critic, Laura Zorc of Vero Beach tells reporters she is pleased with Mayfield’s bill.
“I think it’s good. The wheels on the bus are coming off slowly,” Zorc said.
The bill, which does not have a Senate sponsor yet, says the state can use Common Core only after there are full cost analysis and the state holds at least one Board of Education public hearing in each congressional district. Mayfield says it would be an opportunity for parents and teachers to add input.
