LITTLE ROCK, AR – The Governor’s Council on Common Core Review has cast a unanimous vote on its findings and recommendations following months of meetings with groups all across the state.
The decision by the 17-member board chaired by Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin recommends that Arkansas remain with Common Core while the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) reviews state standards with the goal of revising and improving them.
Griffin issued the following statement after vote:
“When the governor formed his Council on Common Core Review, he asked the Council to review and perform a thoughtful analysis of the standards and provide him with timely recommendations. Our priority was to listen, and we did. We relied heavily on public input, especially input received during our nine city listening tour which allowed us to hear from parents, educators and concerned Arkansans for a total of 18 hours. We also held over 40 hours of hearings in five days, which included 16 panels and 50 witnesses offering a wide range of perspectives.
As the father of two young children in the Little Rock Public School system, this assignment was not simply professional, it was personal. At the end of the day, it’s simple what the Council recommended: We terminate our relationship with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test and replace it with a test prepared by American College Testing (ACT), which the governor and the State Board of Education have done; and, where the standards could be better, we recommended they be made better. I am thankful and proud of the hard work and time expended by the Council.”
Click here to read the Council’s findings and recommendations to the governor, or see them attached above.
Governor Asa Hutchinson issued this statement on the council’s action:
“I want to thank the Council and Lieutenant Governor Griffin for their extraordinary and thorough work over the past several months, which included more than 40 hours of hearings on this issue as well as ‘listening sessions’ all across the state providing Arkansans from every corner a chance to voice their opinions.
“My next step is to review and discuss these recommendations with the Department of Education and the Board of Education to determine the timing and specifics of proposed changes.”