Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who took office last year, has announced that he would scrap the Common Core Standards from the state’s school system.
At a press conference at Ida S. Baker High School in Cape Coral, DeSantis said that he’s heard a lot of frustration from parents and teachers with Common Core and the testing that goes along with it.
“I had a lot of parents who were frustrated because they didn’t understand some of the math. So let’s try to get this right. We want to be very high quality, we want to demand excellence, but I think we want to do that in a way that’s responsive to some of the concerns we’ve had over the many number of years,” he argued.
Gov. DeSantis announced he’d be signing an executive order to instruct the state education commissioner to provide a road map to Florida-based standards, eliminating Common Core, as well as having the commissioner determine how to increase the quality of instructional curriculum, streamlining testing to measure success not teach to a test, and identifying ways to make civics education a priority in Florida.
That last point is something the governor says is particularly important to him.
“”You really need to understand what makes America the country it is,” DeSantis said. “We’re not a country where everyone has the same religious denomination or the same ethnic heritage. What unites, or what’s supposed to, is the ideas and certain principles that the country was founded on, that you see reflected int he Constitution, that have really been the focal points for a lot of the great debates we’ve had int he country’s history.”
“I think it’s important that when we’re sending some of these students out, they’re not only prepared for a career or for higher education, they’re prepared to discharge the duties of citizenship.”
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Below is the exact language Gov. DeSantis is using in the order:
Executive Order 19-32 directs Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to comprehensively review the academic standards for Florida’s Kindergarten through grade twelve students and provide recommended revisions to Governor DeSantis. The recommendations shall:
- Articulate how Florida will eliminate Common Core (Florida Standards) and ensure we return to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic;
- Provide a roadmap to make Florida’s standards number one in the nation;
- Reflect Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran’s consultation with relevant stakeholders to include parents and teachers;
- Deem how to increase the quality of instructional curriculum;
- Suggest innovative ways to streamline testing;
- Identify opportunities to equip high school graduates with sufficient knowledge of America’s civics, particularly the principles reflected in the Unites States Constitution, so as to be capable of discharging the responsibilities associated with American citizenship; and
- Outline a pathway for Florida to be the most literate state in the nation.
