Utah governor asks for review of school standards

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert is asking the state Attorney General’s Office to scrutinize Utah’s commitment to the Common Core.

Herbert announced Thursday he’s calling for the office to look into potential federal snags related to the national guidelines for math and language arts.

He’s also asking a group of Utah higher education experts to weigh in on the set of standards.

Herbert’s communication director Marty Carpenter said the governor announced Thursday that the term “Common Core” has become so contentious that it is dividing Utah residents on things they actually all agree on.

Carpenter said Governor Herbert has asked the attorney general to look into Utah’s adoption of the Common Core standards in English and Language Arts.

“I think from his perspective right now we are compliant with the state law that says we can’t have any of these agreements, we can’t sede any of our authority to the federal government,” Carpenter said. “So we presume that as we’ve been operating, we want to double check, we want to double and triple check, that we don’t have any of those entanglements.

“If we do then yeah, those are things we’ll need to address to make sure that we’re following the state laws that have passed.”

On KVNU’s For the People program Thursday, Carpenter said the governor also invited the public to review current standards and give feedback, saying if there are problems they can be fixed.

His office has created a webpage inviting public comment related to benchmarks adopted in Utah in 2010.

The governor at a Thursday news conference said he’s heard both good comments and negative ones and that both sides have shared the same frustrations under different terms.

Federal officials have urged states to adopt the standards, but they are neither designed nor required by the federal government.

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