The Senate Education Committee Thursday approved a series of education bills on party-line votes to eliminate the new Common Core education standards.

Under the measures each school district would create its own standards that would have to be as strict as those adopted by the State Board of Education in 1999.

State Sen. Al Melvin says the federal money Arizona gets for adopting Common Core is too high a price to pay.

“I just know that like so many other things, that we can do a better job at the state level rather than having these federal standards pushed down to our level,” Melvin said.

Common Core has already been adapted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. Opponents of the bills passed by the committee say they would set the state back a decade and make Arizona less competitive.

The bills now go to the Senate Rules Committee.