JACKSON, Miss. – The first day of the 2015 Mississippi legislative session was met by parents, grandparents, and teachers who gathered on the bottom floor of the state capitol Tuesday in protest against Common Core education standards. Over a hundred peopled were packed in room 113, some traveled there as far south as the Mississippi gulf coast and as far north as Desoto County.
A common theme among protesters was they have a problem with the way math is taught under Common Core. Some parents said they were unable to help their children because of how math problems had to be solved. There were also parents at the rally who said they pulled their children from public schools because of Common Core.
Here is what a few protestors had to say:
In 2010 Mississippi lawmakers adopted Common Core standards along with 45 other states. The standards set educational goals for public schools but they do not determine the curriculum by which those standards are taught. That is decided by local school districts.
The Mississippi Department of Education said on its website that it adopted the standards “because they provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn so that teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.”
