TOPEKA — For the last several years, a vocal group of conservative lawmakers in Kansas have called for repeal of the Common Core academic standards that are used to guide the teaching of English language arts and math in public schools, defining what students are expected to know and be able to do at each grade level in school.

They objected because in many ways, the Common Core appeared to be a set of national standards, something they felt flies in the face of the American tradition of having education policy set at the state and local level.

In particular, they objected to the fact that the Common Core was developed by a multistate consortium in which, it was argued, Kansas had little input. And they especially objected when the Obama administration began requiring states to adopt them — or other standards like them — in order to qualify for certain federal education grant programs.

So now that the Common Core standards are up for their regular seven-year review in Kansas, the Kansas State Department of Education has added four conservative Republican lawmakers — including two House members who voted earlier this year for a bill to repeal the Common Core standards — onto committees that are working to update, and in some cases even rewrite those standards.

Education Commissioner Randy Watson said that was by design. In fact, he said, he wants lawmakers involved in all future updates to state standards, including those in science, art and other subjects, in hopes of fostering greater communication and understanding between the department and the Legislature.

“I hope that the end result is that the Legislature and the State Board of Education and the State Department of Education can have a common understanding of how standards and assessments are designed in Kansas,” Watson said. “I think there are oftentimes misunderstandings of how that process works and how intensive that process is.”

From all appearances so far, that idea appears to be working.

“I attend very few meetings that I go into with trepidation, but that was one of them,” said Sen. Forrest Knox, R-Altoona, who has previously called for repeal of the current Common Core standards.

But Knox, a farmer and rancher with degrees in mechanical engineering, said he walked away impressed after the first meetings of the committee reviewing the math standards.

“What I saw was very straightforward,” he said. “It was just math and how you teach it. I didn’t see anything controversial.”

Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, R-Leavenworth, said he has not taken a position one way or another on the Common Core standards and was going into the process of reviewing the English standards with an open mind.

“I haven’t had the opportunity to review it, but I’m happy to have the ability to be involved and provide some perspective on what’s going on,” said Fitzgerald, who is retired from the military and holds a master’s in business administration.

The House members who are part of the process include Reps. Marc Rhoades, a financial adviser from Newton, and Charles Macheers, a Johnson county attorney.

Both of them voted in March in favor of House Bill 2292, which called for repealing the Common Core standards, and prohibiting the state board from adopting any other “federally provided or required” set of academic standards.

That bill failed in the House, 44-78, and was never considered in the Senate.

“I think it (the review process) is very important because technology is constantly changing,” said Rhoades, who is serving with Knox on the math committee. “I’m learning how much work goes into it, how much teachers care and about their devotion to students.”

Conflict over education policy between the Legislature and Department of Education is nothing new. In fact, the department is sometimes called a “fourth branch of government” because it is supervised by the independently elected State Board, and the Kansas Constitution vests in that board the authority for the “general supervision” of public schools.

But legislators insist they are elected too, and the Constitution gives them the power to appropriate money. And with that power, many lawmakers believe, comes the power to decide what schools can and can’t do with the money they appropriate.

Watson said he expects less controversy when the final draft of the new, revised standards are presented to the Board next year, in part because Kansas is no longer part of any multistate consortium developing the standards or the standardized tests that go with them.

But he also hopes that having lawmakers directly involved in the process will help give them a greater sense of ownership over the standards as well.