We’re getting questions about this so we went ahead and posted about it. On February 17th, the House Education Committee did what is called a “gut and go” where they took the contents of HB 2676 and put it into another bill 2292 and passed it without a hearing. The former 2676/now 2292 is an anti-Common Core bill worded so broadly as to prohibit the teaching of any materials or purchase of any materials aligned with common core.

It specifically talks about IB and AP, stating, “If advanced placement, international baccalaureate, dual credit or other similar courses and tests are administered to public high school students, they shall be aligned with Kansas curriculum standards in effect pursuant to subsection (b)” which requires them to be aligned with Kansas curriculum, which is impossible because these programs are national and Kansas does not get to set its own curriculum for them. This bill also reflects an apparent lack of any comprehension of the role of the State Board of Education and the amount of time and money it takes to switch curricula, among other things.

The bill sponsors include Reps. Scapa, Barton, Bradford, B. Carpenter, Claeys, DeGraaf, Dove, Estes, Garber, Goico, Houser, Hutchins, D. Jones, K. Jones, Kiegerl, Lunn, Macheers, O’Brien, Pauls, Peck, R. Powell, Rahjes, Read, Rhoades, Rubin, Seiwert, Sutton, Vickrey, Weber and Whitmer.

House Education members voting for the bill today were apparently: Reps. Highland, Lunn, Barton, Bradford, Bruchman, Grosserode, Hedke, Hutchins, Jones, Kelley, Macheers, Rhoades, Mast and Vickrey. (Mast and Vickrey were sitting in for Barker and Smith today.)

Thank Reps. Winn, Boldra, Lusk, Alcala and Trimmer for voting against this misguided bill.