The final national common-core standards are due out today, but Gov. Schwarzenegger has still yet to announce his nominations for half of the members of the committee that is supposed to recommend by mid-July whether the state should adopt, reject or modify them.

The continued delay has led to speculation on which way Schwarzenegger is leaning – or whether he’s still making up his mind.

SB X5-1, the Race to the Top legislation passed in January, established the Academic Content Standards Commission. Its job is to make recommendations on the common-core standards to the State Board of Education. The commission must view the common-core standards as a package, adding or changing no more than 15 percent of the standards.

It now has less than six weeks to do its work – not much for a serious comparison of current state standards and the common core standards, along with studying budget and other implications.  Rick Simpson, deputy chief of staff for Assembly Speaker John Perez, has said the commission shouldn’t panic over the deadline. “It is much more important to do it well than to do it quickly,” he has stated.

The Senate Rules Committee and Perez each had five nominees to the Academic Content Standards Commission. Half of the 21 nominees must be classroom teachers.

Senate Rules Committee nominees:

• Eleanor Evans, social sciences teacher at Samuel F. B. Morse High School, San Diego Unified;
• Scott Farrand,  math professor at California State University, Sacramento;
• Kathy Harris,  third-grade teacher at Olivet Elementary (Piner-Olivet School District) and a former California Reading and Literature Project regional director;
• Matt Perry, director of Linked Learning for Sacramento City Unified School District and principal of Arthur Benjamin Health Professions High School;
• Hilda Villarreal Wright,  math academic coach and teacher at Washington Middle School (Bakersfield City School District).

Speaker John Perez’s nominees (updated):

• Heather Calahan, lecturer and executive director, Curtis Jr. Center for Mathematics and Teaching at UCLA;
• Robert Ellis,  a 1st grade teacher in the West Contra Costa Unified School District;
• Bruce Grip, a high school teacher in the Chaffey Joint Union High School District and vice president of the Southern Section of the California Mathematics Council;
• Patricia Sabo, middle school teacher at Healdsburg Junior High and a regional representative of the California Teachers Association;
• Chuck Weis, superintendent of schools, Santa Clara County, and immediate past president of the Association of California School Administrators.