Hearings Debunked Common Core Myths, But Lt. Gov. Still Sees ‘Complicated’ Debate

Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey says he expects legislators to make changes, including possible attempts to withdraw from the new testing consortium known as PARCC. Credit: Blake Farmer / WPLN

Common Core will be the most “complicated” and “important” debate in the upcoming session of the Tennessee legislature. That’s according to Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, who predicts the General Assembly will want to make some tweaks.

Last week’s hearings on the new education standards were a success, at least to Ron Ramsey. To start with, the Common Core standards were read in their entirety, debunking some far-out myths, like government plans to use brainwave monitoring.

“We all know that on my side of the aisle – the conservative Republican side of the aisle – that there’s probably some information on the Internet that’s not true, and we shot some of that down.”

However, Ramsey says he still expects changes will be made, particularly to the amount of data that will be collected and distributed on Tennessee students. It’s ironic though, he says, because Tennessee has long-collected vast amounts of information on students – more than almost any other state – but it’s only just now becoming an issue.