Members of the Senate Education committee agree collaboration is key to good education. Officials with the Midwestern Higher Education Compact share their initiatives and how the state benefits from working with its neighbors with the committee Thursday morning. But common core standards are still on the minds of legislators.
Larry Isaac with the Midwestern Higher Education Compact says its programs save member states millions of dollars every year. The compact provides technical initiatives, discount software, property insurance and many other cost-saving programs. Isaac says the compact’s policy research allows higher ed officials, legislators, and government leaders to decide what’s the best direction to go. Following his presentation, Senator Bruce Rampelberg asks Isaac about common core standards.
“Our data shows that academic preparation for college and work is in need of improvement. That’s the issue, you can call solutions to the issue whatever you want, but that’s the issue. We need to improve academic preparation of people in high school. If you look at the data in here, 70% of students who take the ACT exam aren’t proficient in one of the four areas,” Isaac says.
Isaac says he views common core standards as the states trying to take control of the issue, as it was started by the National Governors Association. Senator Chuck Welke says common core was started in the same mindset of the Midwestern states’ compact.
“This is a great example of working together, a cooperative organization so that we can find ways to improve education. That’s, in my mind, what the governors did when they created common core is that they worked together and created a plan so that we can improve some of the things we’re deficit at,” Welke says.
Welke and other committee members agree working together in various policy areas is the way to move meaningful issues forward.