Mississippi education agency to tweak state standards

The Mississippi Department of Education will seek public input on the controversial Common Core State Standards it adopted five years ago in an effort to improve them.

Starting next month, the agency will make available a website where individuals can comment on each one of the academic standards. The site will be accessible from June 15 to Sept. 15, and is open to parents, educators and the general public.

"It's intended to allow stakeholders to provide feedback to improve standards we have in place now," said MDE spokeswoman Patrice Guilfoyle. "It's not intended to be a referendum on the standards as a whole."

Some parents and high-profile politicians, including Gov. Phil Bryant and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, have called for the removal of the Common Core State Standards. It became a rallying cry at the state Capitol this year and prompted several legislative attempts to forcibly end the MDE's use of the standards.

Lawmakers passed one such bill, Senate Bill 2161, but it was so watered down by the time it reached Bryant's desk that he vetoed it.

MDE's plan, which it announced Thursday at a state Board of Education meeting in Jackson, almost mirrors the watered-down version of the vetoed bill.

SB 2161 had called for a government-appointed task force to study the standards and recommend improvements to the state Board of Education by Dec. 31. Now, MDE will assemble its own task force to study the standards and review the public input to recommend improvements to the board by Dec. 31.

If adopted by the board, the changes would go into effect for the 2016-17 academic year.

It's unclear if the state agency's plan will mollify the mostly Republican lawmakers who had vowed to pass anti-Common Core legislation next year.

Contacted by The Clarion-Ledger, Reeves said he would have preferred an independent task force with members appointed by legislative leaders and the governor rather than MDE.

"At least under this online review, Mississippi parents and teachers will be able to publicly state their opposition to Common Core to the State Board of Education," he said. "I appreciate Dr. Wright for recognizing the need for public review. I just wish this public review had happened in 2010."

Mississippi adopted Common Core in 2010 along with about 45 other states. School districts gradually implemented them since that time with full implementation this academic year.

Critics call Common Core academically inappropriate and argue that it's an attempt by the federal government to interfere with states' rights to oversee public education.

Supporters, including the state's top education officials, staunchly defend Common Core as the best set of standards Mississippi has ever had, although MDE since stopped referring to it as Common Core.

It now calls them the Mississippi College and Career Readiness Standards.

MDE also recently ended its relationship with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, a consortium of Common Core-aligned states that developed the end-of-year assessment given to students.

Contact Emily Le Coz at (601) 961-7249 or elecoz@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @emily_lecoz on Twitter.