JACKSON, Miss. – Parents, educators, the Governor and state representatives rallied together on the state capitol steps today in an effort to stop common core in Mississippi.
Hoping their voices would be heard the first day of the 2015 legislative session, large groups of people showed up to shut down common core with signs that said, “Stop experimenting on my kids,” “No more common core,” and a child held a sign that said, “I’m not common.”
One parent at the rally said, “When you have a first grader that’s doing the common core math that cries every time they have to do it and then you have to hire a tutor to help them out then there’s something wrong.”
Governor Phil Bryant said he issued an executive order in December of 2013 that said, “The state of Mississippi and its local school districts, not the federal government, shall determine the content of the academic standards and curriculum for public schools in Mississippi.”
Bryant said, “The state of Mississippi, not the federal government, should be in charge of that, and the state of Mississippi, not the federal government, shall select statewide assessments to measure student achievement under the state academic standards. We can do that; we’re very smart people in Mississippi and so I believe we can design a standard and a test and it wouldn’t cost us 8.6 million dollars.”
