St Louis Today – by Alex Stuckey
JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri will not be able to pay more than $1 million in membership fees to a Common Core-aligned interstate consortium after a court issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday.
Three Missouri residents sued to block the payment to the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium because they believe it is an unconstitutional interstate compact Congress did not consent to.
The Common Core standards — which have been adopted by 45 states, including Missouri — are meant to ensure students across the United States learn the same skills. Critics, especially some conservatives, have attacked the standards as an intrusion on local control of schools. The state board adopted the standards in 2010. Now, Missouri joins several states in starting to rewrite them.
Court documents state that Missouri can still access the consortium’s assessments without being a member or paying membership fees.
“By contrast, the payment of membership fees to an unconstitutional entity would impose irreparable harm on the Plaintiff taxpayers, who have an interest in ensuring that all payments from the Missouri Treasury are made in accordance with the law,” court documents stated.
In July, Gov. Jay Nixon signed a bill sponsored by Rep. Kurt Bahr, R-O’Fallon, that created work groups consisting of education professionals, parents and business leaders that must meeting to recommend new educational standards to take the place of the Common Core. By law, the groups must make recommendations by Oct. 1, 2015, and the state Board of Education must adopt and implement new standards for the 2016-17 school year. The board does not have to adopt standards recommended by the groups.
Alex Stuckey covers Missouri politics and state government for the Post-Dispatch. Follow her on Twitter at @alexdstuckey.
“Critics, especially some conservatives, have attacked the standards as an intrusion on local control of schools.”
Seriously?
The communists have been in control of the indoctrination centers for many decades now. Commie Core is merely an extension of their ‘programming’.