YORK DAILY RECORD / AP: Proposed regulations supported by Gov. Tom Corbett to require tougher standards for students in order to graduate won the State Board of Education’s approval after a tense meeting Thursday.
The board voted 13-4 after two hours of public comment and debate among board members to approve what is being called the Pennsylvania Core Standards and its associated graduation component. At times, board members raised their voices or spoke to each other tersely, while Corbett’s acting secretary of education, Carolyn Dumaresq, attempted to rebut a long list of complaints that have been lodged against the concept in recent months.
The regulations would trigger perhaps the biggest changes in Pennsylvania school curricula in two decades, even as proponents sought to tamp down concerns over heavy-handed and centralized government intrusion into schools by stressing that each district would still control its curriculum and decide when to administer state-designed graduation tests called Keystone Exams… (more)
