The Education Blog

The Iowa Senate has approved a bill that requires state public schools to follow a mandated curriculum. The bill of statewide education standards has passed 36-14 after four hours of debate and is headed to the House for approval.

Education Week reports that the bill prohibits public schools from including any additional textbooks to meet the State’s mandatory, core curriculum for Math, Science and literacy.

The measure requires public school districts and state accredited nonpublic schools to adopt a core curriculum for math, science and literacy by 2012 for ninth through 12th grade. Schools must also adopt curriculum for social studies and other subjects by the 2014-2015 school year for kindergarten through eighth grades.

Times-Republican quotes Senator Paul McKinley, commenting on the importance of the bill.

“It takes away a very important part of Iowa’s educational system that has served us quite well,” he said. “It replaces it with a state mandate that will result in a further decline in student achievement.”

The bill reportedly carries an estimated annual cost of about $2.6 million from 2009 through 2015 necessary to hire the staff and implement the curriculum.

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