Sen. Dan Sparks, DFL Austin, has requested to be on a conference committee to resolve differences in the House and Senate state K-12 education standards plans.

The Senate passed a bill Friday that repeals the Profile of Learning but proposes a different plan for state education standards than the House of Representatives.

Sparks voted for the bill, which had a 35-31 vote for it. The plan does not accept the standards that Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke and committees, made up of educators and parents across the state, proposed in March.

The House has embraced Yecke's standards, which include hundreds of specific facts and principles students would have to know by the end of each grade.

The legislature has two weeks to resolve differences in the plans -- otherwise the Profile could stay on another year.

Some Republicans have said the Senate plan, written by Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins who is the education committee chairman, has little difference from the current standards.

"Same story, second verse," argued Sen. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater. "We're doing the same thing over again. To say this is repealing the Profile of Learning is just inaccurate."

Kelley's bill would do away with grading and assessment requirements that drew teacher complaints. But it maintains the emphasis on analytical thinking.

In Kelley's plan, for each subject, students are asked to demonstrate an understanding of various concepts and put them to practice, such as reading and creating maps in geography courses.

But Kelley's opponents said his approach focuses too heavily on how children learn and not what they learn.

Yecke said new federal education law requires states to have specific benchmarks for students, measured by annual testing in grades three through eight. Kelley's standards might be too flexible in that regard, she said.

Sparks said he doesn't think the Senate and House proposals differ greatly from each other and that there's room for negotiation. He also said he agrees with aspects of both plans.

"I think the biggest thing is that we repeal the Profile of Learning," Sparks said.

The conference committee, made up of four or five representatives from both the House and Senate, begins meeting next week. Sparks, who serves on the E-12 finance committee, should know by Monday if he was chosen to be on the committee.

Cari Quam can be reached at 434-2235 or by e-mail at :mailto:cari.quam@austindailyherald.com