House Bill 1223 proposed ending the state’s involvement with Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and to prohibit the adoption of certain multistage educational standards. It read:

House bill 1223 proposed chapter 13-3 be amended by adding a new section stating The South Dakota Board of Education shall end the state’s involvement with the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSS) no later than June 30, 2017. Further, it is South Dakota state policy that no multistate educational standards related to, similar to, or associated with the CCSS may be adopted in this state.

Introduced February 3, 2015, this bill has been closely watched by South Dakota educators, who have received emails from members of the South Dakota Education Association (SDEA) requesting its defeat and containing links to representatives. One such email is below (with others having identical or similar content), and it is interesting to note that requesting a no vote seems based upon work completed by educators relating to and regarding the CCSS, with statements of their specific educational quality, value, or benefit missing:

Opponents to the Common Core State Standards are trying to force the state to abandon the current state standards for Math and Language Arts. Tomorrow the House of Representatives will vote on a motion to “Strike the Not” from the current recommendation of the House Education Committee on HB 1223. If this motion is successful, South Dakota may see an unprecedented repeal of the South Dakota Common Core State Standards for Language Arts and Math.

If HB 1223 becomes law, the work of thousands of educators have done over the past three years will be all for none. Millions of dollars in resources will have been wasted and the future education of our students will be left in limbo. Please contact your state legislators IMMEDIATELY and ask them to oppose HB 1223! The State, the districts and the teachers have already invested time and resources preparing and aligning curriculum to the CCSS currently adopted by the state.

The passage of HB 1223 would certainly require teachers to abandon their current curriculum and wait for new standards to be developed and adopted by the state. This will cost more money and time for teachers and schools. Abandoning the standards will demoralize teachers and create academic uncertainty for our students.

Contact your local representatives and please tell them your personal story and ask them to give educators and students time to work with the new standards. Please tell them that starting all over with standards that have not been written is not a good option for students.

House Bill 1223 was defeated this week.