Senate Bill 2161 Summary

• Establishes the Mississippi Commission on College and Career Readiness with 15 members to develop and recommend new curriculum and assessment standards based on national and international benchmarks, with recommendations due by December 1, 2015.

• Directs the State Board of Education to remove all Common Core copyright notices and references from Mississippi's College and Career Readiness Standards to protect state sovereignty over educational standards.

• Prohibits the State Department of Education from requiring school districts to administer the PARCC test or any other consortia-developed assessment beginning with the 2015-2016 school year.

• Establishes student data confidentiality protections prohibiting collection and sharing of personally identifiable student data related to religion, political affiliation, biometric information, or voting history without parental consent.

• Delays until January 1, 2017 the requirement that the state school accountability system be combined with the federal system, allowing time to implement new standards and assessments.