Gov. Mary Fallin's decision to throw out Common Core math and English standards drew immediate criticism from educators and business interests as a disruptive political move that was not in the best interest of young people, while opponents of the benchmarks cheered the end to what they said was a harmful federal intrusion.
“It has become very apparent to me that the word Common Core has become a word that is tainted, that is divisive, that has caused widespread concern throughout our state,” Fallin said in an afternoon news conference.
Robert Sommers, secretary of education and workforce development, clarified that Oklahoma does not get any federal incentive money for having Common Core standards and does not stand to lose any federal funding for education as a result of Fallin’s decision, but it could lose some of the flexibility in how it spends some of that money.
