Republican lawmakers in the Statehouse continue to make election-year hay from a bill that would repeal the Common Core education standards in Ohio.

The measure’s sponsors at least have shown enough respect for Ohio students to remove a provision that would have allowed the teaching of creationism — that is, religion in the guise of science — in the state’s public schools.

But the bill before the state House remains bad business. It needs to die in the General Assembly — or, if it gets that far, to be vetoed by Gov. John Kasich.

To repeat: Common Core’s national standards are not a curriculum. They do not, and under state law cannot, dictate to any Ohio school what it must teach. They simply define what students in every grade should be expected to achieve in math and English. They stress reading, writing, and critical thinking.

The standards do not amount to a federal takeover of education, because they are not a federal mandate. Washington gives states money to maintain the standards and to develop tests pegged to them. That’s all.

Instead, the standards were drafted by state governors and schools superintendents of both parties, informed by teachers’ suggestions, endorsed by private employers across the country, and adopted voluntarily and legally by 45 states (a handful of states have since eliminated them).

The standards remain an effective vehicle for educational reform. Abandoning them now would waste four years of effort — and millions of dollars — expended to bring them to Ohio classrooms starting this school year. That’s an oddly profligate stance for self-described fiscally conservative lawmakers to take.

 

The Blade, Sept. 8