Title: Initiative Petition for a Law Relative to Ending Common Core Education Standards
Be it enacted by the people and their authority:
SECTION 1. Notwithstanding the provisions of any general or special law to the contrary, the vote taken by the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on July 21, 2010, to adopt the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and English Language Arts is hereby rescinded. The curriculum frameworks in Mathematics and English Language Arts that were in effect prior to that date are hereby restored.
SECTION 2. Section 1D of Chapter 69 is hereby amended in the second paragraph by inserting after the first sentence, the following new sentences:
The process shall include committees made up exclusively of public school teachers and academics from private and public colleges and universities established and operated in Massachusetts. The commissioner shall copyright the frameworks, which shall be wholly owned by the department; permission shall be granted to copy any or all parts of these frameworks for non-commercial educational purposes.
SECTION 3. Said section 1D of chapter 69 is hereby further amended in the second paragraph by inserting after the third sentence the following new sentences:
There shall be three review committees, one for each discipline of math, science and technology and English. Each review committee shall have three members appointed by the governor who shall choose said members from private or public research universities established and operated in Massachusetts for each of the disciplines. For the purposes of this section, a “research university” is any university that awards doctoral degrees in the arts and sciences. Each review committee shall warrant by a two-thirds vote that the frameworks are equivalent to the standards of the most educationally advanced nations as determined by the Trends in Mathematics and Sciences Study. No framework shall be approved by the board without such a warrant.
SECTION 4. Section 1I of Chapter 69 is hereby amended in the third paragraph by inserting after the second sentence, the following new sentence:
In order to better inform the teachers and administrators about the diagnostic assessments, after the administration of the assessments but before the start of the new school year, the commissioner shall release all of the test items, including questions, constructed responses and essays, for each grade and every subject.
SECTION 5. The several provisions of this Act are independent and severable and the invalidity, if any, of any part or feature thereof shall not affect or render the remainder of the Act invalid or inoperative.
SECTION 6. This act shall take effect immediately upon becoming law.
I have personally reviewed the final text of this Initiative Petition to End Common Core Education Standards, fully subscribe to its contents, and agree to be one of the original signers of the petition: