Topeka ? A bill that would have repealed the state’s current academic standards for reading, math and other subjects failed to get out of a House committee on Friday, greatly diminishing the chances that Kansas lawmakers will address the issue this year.

The bill failed on what appeared to be a 5-9 vote in the House Education Committee when conservatives who oppose the standards split over how best to address the issue.

House Bill 2292 would have repealed the Common Core standards for reading and math effective July 1, and would put back in place the standards that were in effect in the 2009-2010 academic year before the new standards were adopted.

It also would have prohibited the state or any school district from joining any consortium or using any standards established by any national group if doing so would cede any of the state’s own authority over educational standards.

Several education officials argued that such a bill would effectively eliminate Advanced Placement courses, which are designed by the College Board.

State Board of Education member Deena Horst (second row, left) and interim Education Commissioner Brad Neuenswander listen during committee debate over a bill to repeal the Common Core standards in Kansas.

Kansas state Rep. John Bradford, right, a Lansing Republican, speaks during a House Education Committee debate on banning the use of Common Core education standards in Kansas, as Rep. Amanda Grosserode, left, a Lenexa Republican, watches, Friday, March 20, 2015, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. The stack of papers is dozens of petitions asking for a ban.

Rep. Amanda Grosserode, R-Lenexa, was among those who said earlier measures to repeal the standards have failed on the floor of the House, and that they did not believe there was enough support for such a move this year.

“I’ve listened. I know what’s out there for votes on the floor and I know it’s not going to happen,” Grosserode said.

Grosserode and Rep. John Bradford, R-Lansing, both offered amendments aimed at reaching a compromise. They proposed leaving the current education standards in place until 2017, when the standards are due to be updated anyway, and directing the Kansas State Board of Education to develop new standards, while giving the Legislature the veto authority over any new standards.

But they were outnumbered by those who wanted complete repeal of the standards and Democrats who support the standards and wanted the Legislature to leave them alone.

“When I began to realize early in this session that we had within the conservatives, if I can say that, a wide, wide range of disagreement on (House Bill) 2292,” said Rep. Marc Rhoades, R-Newton. “That’s a House divided. It won’t stand.”

Rep. Ed Trimmer, D-Winfield, pointed out that the standards spell out basic expectations, such as one that says by certain grades, students should be able to read and comprehend a paragraph, or that they should be able to multiply and divide whole numbers.

“This base bill says we can’t spend money, public or private, on anything that aligns with those standards,” Trimmer said. “If we do that, we can’t teach multiplication, division addition or subtraction. We can’t teach reading comprehension.”

The State Board of Education adopted the Common Core standards in 2010, and the state began testing students on those standards last year.

Kansas was part of a multi-state consortium that developed the standards. They are intended to link the expectations of elementary and high school with the expectations for people entering college or the workforce.

In Kansas, they are officially known as the Kansas College and Career Ready Standards.

But they began drawing national scrutiny, and opposition from tea party-affiliated groups, when the Obama administration began encouraging states to adopt them by requiring adoption of those standards, or something like them, to qualify for certain kinds of federal grants.

Kansas state board members have said those federal programs had no bearing on their decision to adopt the standards in 2010.

Rep. Tony Barton, R-Leavenworth, criticized the material being taught in school.

“I’ve got three books right here, basically teaching pornography to kids in school which I personally find to be an issue,” Barton said.

He pointed to a novel, “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison; another novel, “Dreaming in Cuba,” by Christine Garcia; and an elementary-level sex education book entitled “It’s Perfectly Normal.”

But others pointed out that the Common Core standards do not mandate the curriculum schools use or the materials used in classrooms to teach the curriculum. The standards, they say, only identify the knowledge and skills that students should have by the time they finish certain grade levels.

Friday was the deadline for most committees to complete their work and send their bills to the full House and Senate. For the next two weeks, both chambers will spend most of their time debating and voting on bills that have come out of committee.

The first adjournment of the session is scheduled for Friday, April 3. They will then go home for about three and a half weeks while waiting for new consensus revenue estimates to be released. Then they’ll return Wednesday, April 29, for the final wrap-up session to deal with any bills vetoed by the governor and to finalize tax and budget bills.