Cobb County’s school board hopes to put behind them Wednesday a months-long and contentious battle over whether its 108,000 students will receive textbooks when school starts in two weeks.
In April, board members rejected purchasing $7.5 million worth of new math textbooks they said were too closely aligned to Common Core, a set of math and literature learning standards that have been adopted by Georgia and 44 other states.
Some board members feel as if Common Core amounts to federal takeover of local schools.
After outrage from teachers and parents who said test scores will suffer without the updated textbooks, the board will consider Wednesday a scaled-down and mostly-digital alternative to purchasing those books.
The new proposal to the board, created by the administration, recommends spending just $2.9 million in sales tax money to purchase mostly online and digital versions of those books for middle and high school students but not elementary students.
“I felt like updated and current textbooks ought to be in the classrooms,” said board member David Banks, who will present the recommendation. “One hundred math teachers said these are the textbooks they recommend. I consider them the experts. The textbooks are at a much higher level than Common Core anyways.”
The district will save the $4.6 million money not used in case that the state scraps Common Core.
“I’m leaning toward voting for that,” said board chair Randy Scamihorn who voted against the original proposal. “It gives us some options for the near future.”
The April vote pitted administrators, parents and teachers against board members and raucous tea party activists.
Several board members and local tea party activists argue that Common Core is nothing more than a federal takeover of local schools and an attempt to “dumb down” Georiga students. They also have questioned the need for hard-bound textbooks, and say state leaders could easily soon replace those standards which would make books aligned with them useless.
The board’s decision in April shocked the superintendent and sparked protests from teachers who argued that the textbooks are needed to build curriculum, lesson plans and homework.
Without them, students will be left to navigate free and unreliable websites, exposing teachers to copyright infringement and racking up high printing costs for the district, they said. Cobb students have struggled with the state’s math standards which have changed frequently in recent years.
The originally-proposed math books were selected by a committee made up of more than 100 Cobb math teachers and set on display for the public.
Banks has previously said that the board has been “hijacked by special interest groups,” referring to the local Tea Party activists who have shown up to board meetings to protest Common Core.
He also said the board may be asking for trouble with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the district’s accrediting agency.
Jennifer Oliver, a spokeswoman for SACS, said the agency isn’t investigating the board.
The board meeting will take place at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at the district’s headquarters at 514 Glover St. in Marietta.
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