Two more bills tied to Common Core found passing votes on Wednesday. ASBSD supports the implementation of the Common Core Standards.
Members of the Senate State Affairs committee voted in favor of Senate Bills 63 and 64.
Senate Bill 63, which protects the privacy of individual student records by prohibiting the collection of student information including, political affiliation, religious practices and family gun ownership among other things and requires increased security measures to protect information, passed on a 9-0 vote.
“It is just to protect our children, as much as we possibly can,” Sen. Ernie Otten, the bill’s prime sponsor, said.
An increasing criticism of the Common Core Standards has been the unfounded fear that personal data would be collected as part of the standards.
Committee member Sen. Tim Rave called the bill “a really common sense approach to addressing the issues.” Committee members discussed the potential for amendments to be introduced to the bill, but did not address specifics.
ASBSD is monitoring the bill, which will now head to the Senate floor.
Senate Bill 64, which requires a moratorium period of no less than six months to allow for public comment before the adoption of new content standards drafted by a multistate consortium, passed on a 7-2 vote.
Sen. Otten said the bill would allow for education stakeholders to have “a frank conversation about we want for kids” when considering additional education standards.
Common Core language arts and math standards were adopted in 2010 and are currently being implemented.
Tony Venhuizen, the Director of Policy and Communication for the Governor’s office, said there are no plans to adopt any additional multistate standards in South Dakota.
Secretary of Education Melody Schopp reinforced the point in her testimony at Wednesday’s Joint Appropriations committee meeting when she announced South Dakota was not pursuing multistate consortium developed science standards.
The bill now moves to the Senate floor for debate. ASBSD is monitoring its progress.
For more updates from legislative session, check the ASBSD Blog, and visit our Bill Tracker page to follow the positions of ASBSD on bills.