North Dakota will stay with “Common Core” educational standards – and will stay in the “Smarter balanced” consortium.
A bill to have North Dakota withdraw from Common Core was defeated on the House floor.
That bill would have also restricted the power and authority of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Those House members who wanted to withdraw from Common Core and the “Smarter Balanced” consortium – the group that would come up with student assessments – split the bill in two parts – one dealing with “Smarter Balanced” and the other with the Superintendent’s authority.
At times, the debate became emotional.
"The question I have would be, why would we give up our state's sovereignty over the most important Constitutional obligation that we have," said House Speaker Wes Belter (R-Fargo). "And that is the education of the children of North Dakota."
"For the content of these assessments to be decided by this consortium, binding upon all of its members, it would have a powerful effect on the curriculum our state employs in order to do well on these assessments," said Rep. Christopher Olson (R-West Fargo). "This amounts to an incredible concession of state sovereignty and decision making ability with regards to assessments, and therefore, curriculum."
But the chairman of the House Education Committee – Rep. Mike Nathe (R-Bismarck) – says the “Smarter Balanced” consortium works for the states, not the other way around.
"I have two kids in this K-12 system," said Nathe. "They're under the Common Core standards. It's wonderful. What is wrong with raising the bar and challenging our students and teachers? We all asked for that."
Rep. Eliot Glassheim (D-Grand Forks) questioned whether local districts -- or the state of North Dakota -- have the expertise to do the assessments that would be necessary to see if North Dakota students were keeping up.
"Don't we want to know what we're getting for our billions of dollars we spend on education every year?" asked Glassheim.
The first part of the bill failed on a 46 to 43 vote. No Representative voted for the second part of the bill – so it was defeated.