States

Wisconsin Gov. Walker Calls for Repeal of Common Core in 2015

By Andrew Ujifusa — July 17, 2014 1 min read
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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has called for his state legislature to approve a bill repealing the Common Core State Standards next year.

In a July 17 press release, Walker, a Republican who is widely considered to be a contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, provided no further details beyond his call for a repeal of the standards and to “replace it [the common core] with standards set by people in Wisconsin” during the 2015 legislative session.

In a blog post about the common core in the context of presidential politics, I noted that Walker did sponsor legislation during the state’s 2014 legislative session that would have halted the state’s implementation of the common core and created a new government body that would have had the power to create new academic standards. So Walker’s distaste for the common core is not really new.

State Superintendent Tony Evers, a frequent opponent of Walker on education matters, is an adamant supporter of the common core, and led a successful effort to kill Walker’s bill this year.

However, Walker is at least the fourth Republican governor in the last month to express high-profile concern—if not outright opposition—to the standards, following Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, and Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who earlier on July 17 made his own announcement calling for a broad review of the standards.

Photo: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker speaks to Ernesto Gonzalez II at Milwaukee Area Technical College July 18, in Oak Creek, Wis. Walker, whose call to scrap common core standards is meeting resistance from Republican Senate leaders, said that whatever is adopted may not differ significantly from the common core.—M.L. Johnson/AP

A version of this news article first appeared in the State EdWatch blog.