AP: Many Await Fallin Decision On Common Core Bill
Fallin Considers Whether To Sign, Veto Common Core
By Sean Murphy, The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — The fate of the Common Core education standards in Oklahoma is in the hands of Gov. Mary Fallin, who has a week to decide whether she will go along with the Legislature’s plan to replace them with a new set of math and English guidelines.
The Common Core program was established to help prepare students for college and the workforce, but some fear it grants outsiders too much influence in the state’s public education system.
On the final day of the legislative session, the House and Senate pushed through a 58-page bill that would repeal the standards, which already have been adopted by Oklahoma and more than 40 other states. They would be replaced initially with the standards that were in place five years ago, and the state would develop new standards by 2016.
Fallin, who has been a strong supporter of the more rigorous new standards, has until the end of the week to decide whether to sign or veto the bill.
“She’s in a tough spot because she came out at the beginning of session with full-throated endorsement of Common Core. Now she’s being pressured by members of her own party, and a bipartisan group of Oklahomans actually, to sign a bill that essentially abolishes Common Core,” said House Democratic Leader Rep. Scott Inman, D-Oklahoma City. “The question is whether the governor will stand on her original principles or cave to political pressure.”