Dive Brief:

• South Carolina Superintendent Mick Zais announced Monday that he was withdrawing the state from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.
• South Carolina joined the consortium in February 2012, but conflicting decisions by the S.C. Board of Education and S.C. Department of Education bred confusion. There is still no word on which Common Core-aligned test will replace the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards.
• Zais told The Island Packet that he isn't "wed" to any test in particular, and potential options could include the ACT Aspire exam or a new version of the PASS test, reworked for the Common Core.

Dive Insight:

Zais decision comes as legislation in the state threatened to force its exit from the Smarter Balanced consortium and ban that exam all together, so the superintendent ultimately beat state lawmakers to the punch with his announcement. Those legislative efforts, The Island Packet reports, were compromises that followed failed attempts to throw out the Common Core standards, which have already been introduced statewide. All things considered, it's probably better to create all of this confusion over a single exam than to wipe out standards for everyday learning that are already being rolled out across the state.