Gov. Scott Walker, speaking Saturday at the National Governors Association convention, called on the state to repeal adoption of the Common Core State Standards for schools. Credit: Associated Press

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Madison — Republican Gov. Scott Walker said Thursday he wants Wisconsin to repeal the Common Core education standards it has adopted along with most other states, making his strongest statement on the issue yet.

"Today, I call on the members of the state Legislature to pass a bill in early January to repeal Common Core and replace it with standards set by people in Wisconsin," Walker said in a written statement.

The declaration comes after months of virtually no public debate among Wisconsin lawmakers on the standards; earlier this year, a proposal in the Legislature to undo them went nowhere, with Walker saying little.

Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du Lac) who wrote a bill to repeal Common Core last session but couldn't get it passed, said Walker's comments will add momentum next session.

"I think it's huge," he said.

However, the governor's surprise move prompted the state superintendent and a leading lawmaker on education issues — who is a member of the governor's own party — to suggest political motivations.

"It may work well for the political end of things, but it's sending messages to our kids that our system is chaotic, and it's not," state Superintendent Tony Evers said late Thursday.

"The idea that they'd just be able to replace the standards at the beginning of the legislative session is absurd," said Steve Kestell (R-Elkhart Lake), the chair of the Assembly's Education Committee. "We're in an election season. People desperate to be re-elected will say anything."

Wisconsin and most other states signed on to the effort in 2009 to develop a set of common academic expectations. National test scores were suggesting that students in different states were learning different content in different grades — or not at all.

Common Core's goal was to improve the rigor of American K-12 schooling by defining what children should know and be able to do at the end of each grade in core academic subjects, starting with reading and English/language arts. On a practical level, the idea was that a student in Germantown, Tenn., and a student in Germantown, Wis., would generally be on the same track.

Developing the standards went on quietly for years but became controversial recently, as they started to be implemented and as tests tied to them started being administered.

The complaints were myriad: Some teachers who supported the standards said they weren't getting enough training and resources; some parents were alarmed by the drop in test scores; some observers thought the federal government had too much involvement and the standards took away local control.

The federal government had, in fact, offered states incentives to adopt the standards — but didn't write them or force states to adopt them.

Fueling the concern, at some schools virtually any change in structure or content that people didn't like was attributed to Common Core — fairly or unfairly. In some respects, Common Core became to education what Obamacare is to health care.

That growing agitation over Common Core was reflected in Wisconsin during the last legislative session. Some Republicans supported a bill that would have undone the standards, a move that pitted them against other legislators from both parties, as well as educators and school superintendents.

The standards survived intact.

The timing

So why is the governor taking a stance now?

Walker spokeswoman Jocelyn Webster said Thursday that Walker issued his statement because he wanted to make his position clear after the Cedarburg School Board voted Wednesday to urge the state to delay new state tests tied to the standards.

"Governor Walker will work with the Legislature to repeal Common Core and replace it with strong Wisconsin-specific standards developed by Wisconsin teachers, administrators, and parents," Webster said in an email.

The Wisconsin Legislature, in previous action, approved rolling out new exams tied to the new standards in the 2014-'15 school year.

Action in other states

Then there's the national picture.

Several lawmakers and governors in other states have been taking action to rewrite or review the standards.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, signed legislation this week that will trigger a review and possible revision of the standards for the 2016-'17 school year.

Also this week, North Carolina's Legislature passed a bill calling for rewriting the Common Core standards, and Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, indicated he would sign it.

As of the end of June, three states — Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina — had officially dropped out of the Common Core.

But Indiana, the first to officially dump the standards with a call to create "state-specific" ones instead, came back with a new set of academic guidelines that looked almost exactly like the Common Core.

"If you put a bunch of capable people together in a room to rewrite these standards, they're going to look a lot like the Common Core," said Kestell, the Republican chair of the Assembly Education Committee.

In Wisconsin, Walker has long said he thought the state should set its own standards but has never provided specifics.

Political motivations?

Evers said he thinks the most strident critics are fairly small in number, but their vote might be determined by a politician's stance on Common Core alone.

"It's all about getting your people to the polls," he said.

Walker's comments come as he finds himself in a tight race with former Trek Bicycle Corp. executive Mary Burke, a Democrat.

Burke, who sits on the Madison School Board, has said she backs the Common Core standards.

"This is a desperate election year move by a career politician to shore up his extreme right-wing base," said a statement from Burke spokesman Joe Zepecki.

But key Republicans supported the governor's position.

State Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), the co-chairwoman of the Legislature's powerful Joint Finance Committee, said, "I know there is support on both sides of the aisle to end Common Core and develop new standards that challenge and prepare our students for the real world of work."

A new Legislature will be seated in January, after the Nov. 4 elections.