BATON ROUGE — The Senate Education Committee on Wednesday approved a bill by Rep. Brett Geymann that is part of a Common Core compromise lawmakers have worked out over the last several weeks.

House Bill 373 goes to the full Senate for consideration. The measure calls for the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to begin reviewing and developing state content standards in English and math July 1. The standards would be take effect in the 2016-2017 school year.

Geymann, R-Moss Bluff, said he was pleased to have the committee approve his bill. The legislation in its original form intended to implement state content standards for public school students with legislative approval.

“It went pretty smooth,” Geymann said. “It does give a clear process to do our own standards.”

The measure also calls for holding public meetings on school standards in each congressional district. Geymann said the legislation allows the public to have “every opportunity to be involved.”

BESE would also have to follow the Administrative Procedures Act when coming up with rules and other education-related changes, something Common Core opponents said the board didn’t do when it implemented the curriculum in 2010.

The standards would be posted on the BESE website by Feb. 21 and would be adopted by March 4. State Education Superintendent John White said he supports the measure.

The committee also approved House Bill 542, by Rep. John Schroder, R-Covington, with amendments. It heads to the Senate.

The bill would prevent the state Department of Education from contracting with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers consortium for student testing administered in the 2015-2016 school year.

The department must contract with another vendor, following the Louisiana Procurement Code, for assessments in grades 3-10 in English and math.

Less than half the questions in the assessment can be based on a blueprint developed through the PARCC process, or processes conducted by a federally funded consortium of states or a consortium of states funded by organizations “dedicated to political advocacy.”

Brett Geymann