In a preliminary hearing Friday, a state judge has rejected a bid by 17 state lawmakers to immediately halt implementation of Common Core in Louisiana.
The lawmakers sought a temporary injunction to prevent the rollout of the benchmarks for what students should know at each grade level.
District Judge Tim Kelley explained that such injunctions are meant to maintain the status quo while an issue is resolved, and ruled that the Common Core state standards are already being used in Louisiana classrooms.
State Superintendent John White testified educators began adjusting curriculum and lesson plans as soon as Louisiana adopted the standards in 2010. Chas Roemer, president of the state school board, says the legal battles won’t derail the implementation.
“I want the message to teachers and the districts of this state to be clear," Roemer said. "Common Core is the law of this state, and that’s what we’re going to move forward with.”
State Rep. Brett Geymann, who is among the plaintiffs, says the case over whether Common Core was properly adopted or implemented could proceed to trial.
“This was about the democratic process that the people were left out (of)," Geymann said. "The thing we heard over and over after the homework began to hit the kitchen table this past school year was how’d this happen?”
Another judge will hear the first arguments in a separate case regarding Common Core Monday. That suit asks the court to undo Gov. Bobby Jindal’s suspension of a contract for tests related to the standards that are slated to be administered this spring.