Governor Fallin Signs Repeal Of Common Core Standards

This impacts public school students statewide.

Governor Mary Fallin signed a bill repealing the Common Core Standards for English and math.

The State Board of Education will now design a new set of academic standards.

With the governor's signature, Oklahoma becomes only the second state in the nation to repeal rigorous Common Core standards.

"I'm here to announce that I have signed House bill 3399," Governor Fallin said.

The Governor met with parents and educators before making the decision.

"We are very capable as Oklahomans of developing our own Oklahoma standards to make sure that our children receive the highest quality education possible in our state," Fallin said.

"It could have gone either way. There was a lot of misinformation being pushed out to teachers making them fearful of losing their jobs," said Deer Creek parent, Melissa Wilkens. "They were going to shut down schools, we're going to lose federal funding."

A group of parents have been pushing daily, trying to convince the Governor to sign the bill.

"As parents, we have no money in this game," said Wilkens. "All we have are children; children who have suffered the effects of the developmentally inappropriate content."

The new bill reverts the state back to math and English standards put in place before 2010. New ones are to be developed by 2016.

"My goal is that they will be better than the standards that we saw coming out of Common Core," Fallin said.

"Stand For Children Oklahoma" disagrees. They released the following statement:

"Today's decision by Governor Mary Fallin to sign HB3399 is not only disappointing, it's dangerous. She is abandoning the hard work of Oklahoma teachers who want to ensure all kids graduate from high school prepared for the real world. The ultimate and unfortunate losers in this game of political brinkmanship are Oklahoma's children.

With her signature, the Governor is inserting even more federal control over our schools—the very issue the most vocal opponents say they want stopped.

While we hold out hope the courts will find the law to be unconstitutional, her signature ensures almost with certainty that more than 1600 schools face closure, a take-over by the state department of education, fired teachers and principals, or for-profit charter conversion. What's worse is the bill sets up an unprecedented power-grab by politicians to insert their own brand of politics into educational decisions that should be made by the experts—local teachers and school boards.

It's a shame this bill ever made it to her desk to begin with, but an ever bigger disappointment that our Governor signed a bill that will stall the progress of thousands of Oklahoma kids," said Amber England, interim executive director of Stand for Children Oklahoma.

"I know this process is not going to be easy," said Fallin. "There are things in this legislation that will cause challenges, but there's also great opportunity for Oklahoma to work together."

The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers on the final day of the session.