W.Va. Senate Advancing Education Standard Review

State Senators have made changes to a bill that, as approved by the House, would repeal the state’s Common Core education standards and aligned standardized tests. 

Senators on the Education Committee accepted amendments to the bill during an evening meeting Monday.

As approved by the committee, the bill still requires a repeal of Common Core based education standards, but those standards were repealed by the state Board of Education in December and replaced with the West Virginia College and Career Ready Standards.

The bill requires the Senate President and House Speaker appoint a commission to review the current standards and suggest changes to the state board. That commission would be made up of content experts in the fields of English, math, and science and would be overseen by the chancellor of the Higher Education Policy Commission.

Senators also included an amendment that would keep the current science standards in place, allowing them to take effect in July of this year, but would make those standards subject to the review of the commission.

It also removes the provision that would allow students to opt out or refuse to take a standardized test.

The bill will be reported to the full Senate today and could be up for a vote by Friday.