I told you on May 11 that the American Legislative Exchange Council delayed its vote on a resolution opposing the Common Core State Standards. That marked the second time that ALEC’s board of directors, which has final say on all resolutions and model bills that the conservative, pro-free-market group’s various policy “task forces” approve, had an opportunity to deliver a final vote on the common core resolution, but did not.
In a subsequent email, the director of ALEC’s Education Task Force, Adam Peshek, informed me that the board sent the resolution back to the task force to clarify some points in the resolution and to get others parts of it “tightened up” before the board considers the final resolution. He stated that the board does not want “federal intrusion” into standards, but at the same time wants to support “strong state standards.”
Beyond the fact that the task force now has some work to do, it’s difficult to reach any definitive conclusion based on what Peshek wrote. The real test will come when there’s that final vote from the board of directors and all the influential players weigh in and lobby for their points of view. Remember, the task force already has adopted a version of the anti-common-core resolution once, last year.
ALEC’s vote could influence how state legislators act on common core when they go back to their respective state capitols. But there are a lot of moving parts to the adoption and use of common core, so there isn’t necessarily a straight line between a resolution and a seismic shift in the standards initiative’s future.