NC superintendent wants to 'remove Common Core,' plans to survey educators and parents

North Carolina Superintendent Mark Johnson said Thursday he wants to remove Common Core academic standards from public schools and plans to survey educators and parents about the topic.

"Opposition to Common Core from educators and parents is what I hear about the most across our state,” Johnson said in a statement. “I strongly disagreed with the State Board of Education’s decision to keep Common Core in place in 2017."

"Many states, like North Carolina, were 'changing' standards by making tweaks to Common Core and then calling it by a different name," Johnson continued. "But now there’s a clear path we can replicate in North Carolina to remove Common Core, and I encourage the State Board to closely examine this new option with us."

Johnson pointed to Florida, where the commissioner of education took action to remove Common Core and replace it with the new Florida’s B.E.S.T. Standards (Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking).

Common Core is a benchmark for what children should know in reading, writing and math from kindergarten through grade 12. In general, the standards emphasize giving students the ability to understand concepts – whether in math or reading – well enough to apply them in the real world.

Common Core backers say the rigorous standards improve education and make North Carolina competitive by producing a workforce that can solve problems. But opponents say the standards are unclear, repetitive and developmentally inappropriate.

The North Carolina State Board of Education adopted the Common Core standards for math and English language arts/literacy in 2010 and re-approved the standards in 2017, over the objections of Johnson. 

Johnson said he is also "working to ensure that rigorous U.S. history requirements remain in place in North Carolina."

Beginning next school year, North Carolina high school students will take one American history course instead of two so schools can add a personal finance class to the schedule.

The State Board of Education approved the change in January to comply with state lawmakers' demand for the finance course. David Stegall, deputy superintendent of innovation, said the decision puts North Carolina more in line with other states.

“Recent efforts in support of better financial literacy have led to concerns that this might be a backdoor effort to diminish the importance of American history classes in North Carolina schools. We will not let that happen," Johnson said. "I want to make sure our parents know that students will still be getting robust, rigorous lessons in our history and founding principles, and not only will we keep all America history standards, we will improve our efforts to teach the founding principles of our nation.”

Johnson has instructed DPI that no social studies standards are to be eliminated.