A comprehensive review of West Virginia's Common Core-based education standards has generated more than 200,000 comments, state school officials said Monday.
Calling the amount of feedback "historic," state Superintendent Michael Martirano gave legislators their first update of the review at a Monday interim meeting of the Joint Education Committee, during which he lobbied for the continued use of West Virginia's embattled math and English standards.
Martirano, who ordered the Department of Education to review the controversial standards after Republican legislators attempted to repeal them earlier this year, said about 4,000 people have commented, using a website where the state's 900 math and English standards are available for critique.
Delegate Dave Perry, D-Fayette, asked if those comments would be turned over to the Legislature. Martirano said his office would do its best to apprise legislators of the review's outcome, though a summary is not likely before interims in October and November.
The review isn't expected to be completed until November.
While Martirano said the review timeline, already rushed to have a final recommendation ready for the state Board of Education by December, doesn't line up with the Legislature's interim schedule, he promised lawmakers would be part of the process.
"When we do a presentation for the board in November, I'd like to invite our legislators," he said, later adding that the board would be willing to change its meeting place to accommodate for a larger audience.
"We want them (the Legislature) to be informed and updated," he said.
Once the commenting period closes at the end of this month, review committees will analyze feedback in October so a recommendation can be made to the state school board in November. Action, if required, is expected in December.
Regardless of the review's outcome, Republicans already are signaling their intents to repeal the Common Core-based standards, which are a set of grade-level expectations in math and English that make sure public school students get the same basic education. West Virginia's standards, the Next Generation Content Standards and Objectives, were vetted by educators across the state and have been deemed academically superior than those previously used.
When asked if repealing those standards would once again be a topic on the Legislature's agenda, Sen. Dave Sypolt, R-Preston, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said he was certain it would.
"Absolutely," he said. "That's the short answer."
While Sypolt said he believes there are problems with the current standards, he first wants to hear what Department of Education officials have to say before he passes judgment.
"It's important to make sure we have the proper standards in place," he said. "I'm not an educator, so I'll defer to the experts."
Earlier this year, Sypolt's committee worked on a bill, sponsored by Delegate Amanda Pasdon, R-Monongalia, that would have ousted the standards and required the Department of Education to almost immediately adopt or develop a new set. The committee's downgrading that bill to a study of the standards ultimately led to its failure on the last day of the 2015 session.
In addition to the standards review, which can be accessed by visiting www.academicspotlight.statestandards.org, the Department of Education is facilitating a series of regional meetings where members of the public can air grievances with Common Core. So far, there have been meetings in Morgantown, Huntington and South Charleston.
Additional meetings are scheduled to take place in Athens on Sept. 17, Mount Gay on Sept. 20, Wheeling on Sept. 22 and Shepherdstown on Sept. 29. All meetings will start at 6:30 p.m., except for those in Athens and Mount Gay, which will start at 5:30 p.m.
So far, no one attending the regional meetings have identified problems with a specific standard, something the department has explicitly called for.
Following the interim meeting on Monday, Martirano did not say whether that also is the case for comments received through the website.
Reach Samuel Speciale at sam.speciale@dailymailwv.com, 304-348-7939 or follow @samueljspeciale on Twitter.