#NCGA: Tillman says Common Core deal VERY CLOSE
State senator Jerry Tillman, the majority whip and NCGA Republicans’ leading voice on education issues, says he is confident the House and Senate will have their differences ironed out within days. Tillman sponsored — and ushered through his chamber — a bill he says repeals Common Core and puts decision-making on public school curriculum in the hands of North Carolinians.
Tillman’s bill puts decision making on the curriculum in the hands of an independent commission and the state board of education. The decisions made by those two bodies will then have to be blessed by the general assembly. The senator said that (1) recent appointments to the state board of education, and (2) the checks and balances in place make him feel good about a sensible, state-based outcome.
A conference committee should be organized either today or tomorrow to get to work on hammering together a final version on the Common Core legislation. Tillman said there is really only ONE sticking point that separates the House and Senate:
“They’ve inserted a provision that makes it illegal to consider or adopt ANYTHING even remotely similar to what is currently part of Common Core. Don’t get me wrong — just about everything in Common Core is bad stuff. There are one or two things or so there that I might be able to live with. But, under the House bill, if the commission or the board wants to consider any of those few good points, or something somewhat similar to what is currently in Common Core, they would be violating the law. I don’t want to tie their hands like that. Both sides clearly want to repeal Common Core, as it stands. If we could pull out that one restriction — I think we would have a bill that we would all be happy about sending to the governor.”
Tillman also wanted to clarify some comments he made in a recent committee meeting that were captured on video and went viral across social media. In that speech, Tillman appears to suggest that Gov. Pat McCrory and The Chamber of Commerce were against Common Core:
“I heard from a few folks about that. I went back and watched the video, and I didn’t come off at all like I wanted to. Governor McCrory and The Chamber are not fans of making changes to Common Core. I, on the other hand, am all for repealing Common Core.”
The House are the heroes here. Tillman needs to stop carrying water for the Chamber of Corruption, err, Commerce, which is the mother of all special interest groups.
Pittman and Speciale are the real heroes while TIllman has been fighting a rear guard action to try to get by with putting a bandaid on a cancer. Tillman needs to get with the NCGOP platform and help kill it instead of trying to save some part of Common Core or some avenue to protect some part of it. Common Core needs to be killed graveyard dead.
We also do need to thank Thom Tillis, who always tries to be a control freak in the House. This legislation would not have been allowed to get this far without one of Tillis’ famous ”green lights”. We need to keep an eye on who is appointed to the conference committee. If one or more weak sisters get appointed from the House, Tillis would have undone at one stroke all that he has done so far for conservatives. With his need for conservative support in the Senate, race, I do not expect that to happen.
Never thought I’d disagree with you boss, but the T Man carries water for no one.
Tillman was largely responsible for the weak-as-water Senate bill, and my sources in the House tell me that it was the Chamber largely pushing a bill that seemed to do something but actually did not, which is exactly what the original Senate bill was.
…not by what they say but by what they do shall you judge.
Unfortunately, there were some bad amendments made to SB 812 before it left the House Floor yesterday. Both amendments were proposed by Mecklenburg Democrat Tricia Cotham.
Amendment 1 protects Federal education programs such as, but not limited to, International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement, from being removed from the state curriculum as part of the Common Core removal.
Amendment 2 strips out language which prohibited the collection of “psychometric data” on NC children by the Federal government. Collection of families’ religions, political party affiliations, biometric information, and voting histories are all still specifically prohibited.
These two amendments definitely water down the bill, but it’s still not as weak as it was prior to the vote of the House Education Committee last week. In the end, Pittman, Speciale, and all other Republicans voted in favor of final passage of the bill. It now goes back to the Senate, which will have to choose to accept this version, or convene a conference committee in an attempt to weaken it further.
Here are the roll call votes on today’s amendments:
Amendment 1 – protecting federal education programs from state removal: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascrip…H&RCS=1602
Amendment 2 – allowing collection of “psychometric data” on NC children: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/voteHistory/RollCallVoteTranscript.pl?sSession=2013&sChamber=H&RCS=1603
Roll call vote on final House passage:
http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/voteHistory/RollCallVoteTranscript.pl?sSession=2013&sChamber=H&RCS=1604
I am glad to hear that he agrees with most of the Pittman amendments, but would like for him to clarify specifically which provision it is that he wants to strike from Pittman’s version so that residents can better understand the concern? Please let us know what specific section it is that he intends to propose striking from the bill. If he is referring to section 1c4, then I think he is absolutely wrong about needing to take that out of the bill & doing so would greatly hurt us & would enable the “renaming” of Common Core that we DON’T want.
SECTION 1.(c) During the 2014?2015 school year, the State Board of Education shall complete the following duties:
4) Remove the Common Core copyright and any references to the Common Core Standards from the North Carolina Standard Course of Study in English Language Arts and in Mathematics to ensure North Carolina’s sovereign right to modify standards to best meet the needs of North Carolina’s citizens.
The language does not prevent them from using items that are similar or common to the current common core standards, it removes REFERENCE to the Common Core, as in, “this is Common Core, amended 15%” kind of thing. This language does not prevent us from using something such as, “first graders are to know how to read phonics” etc., just because the C/Core standards also have something of similar language… it removes any reference, so that we actually DO have control over our standards. If we keep the common core copyright then we won’t have control any more than 15%.