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By Ken Mercer, SBOE Dist. 5

Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – “After more than a year of expert testimony and debate, the State Board of Education has approved world-class math standards!  Texas students will be able to battle with the best students in both national & international competitions,” said conservative SBOE Member Ken Mercer (R-San Antonio), alerting the 1.67 million constituents in his district of last week’s events.

“We delivered standards in Texas that are stronger and more rigorous than the national, one size fits all  Common Core Standards,” Mercer said.

“Texas is making a strong statement that it can write its own standards,” said SBOE Chair Barbara Cargill (R-The Woodlands).

The Obama administration sent Federal stimulus money to states that committed to the new national standards — sight unseen — before the Common Core Standards were even written!

“Thanks to the courage of Gov. Rick Perry and the guidance of Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott,  Texas is one of the few brave states in the nation that refused to adopt the Common Core standards.  We in Texas took on the arduous task of writing our own standards, and we have now completed new standards for all four core curriculum areas,” added Mercer.

The Texas Education Agency reported that “hundreds of Texas educators, citizens, and business leaders offered input that was used to craft the new Texas standards.”

One of the most crucual votes to many analysts, was to exclude calculator use among students from Kindergarten through Grade 5. This is seem by many education experts as a key means for students  brain development, said Mercer.

The TEA summarized the timeline for implementation of these new Math curriculum standards:

“The new standards will be implemented in kindergarten through 8th grade classrooms in the 2014-2015 school years, while the new high school standards will be implemented in 2015-2016.

The implementation date was split to ensure that funds were available to purchase new textbooks and other instructional materials based on the updated standards. It will also give teachers more time to update their lesson plans.”

The elected members of the Texas State Board of Education worked long and hard to complete the adoption of new standards for all four core subject areas (English, science, history, math); and believe them to be the finest in the entire United States, largely because Texas’ standards are factual, academic, explicit, specific for each grade level (or course), and can be tested largely through objective questions.

Ken Mercer (R–San Antonio) is a Member of the State Board of Education and a former State Representative. Mercer represents some 1.7 million constituents in 12 counties, including: Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Comal, Gillespie, Guadalupe, Hays, Kendall, Llano, and parts of Bell, Bexar & Travis.