Minnesota Education Reform News suggests that perhaps the alternative bill strategy is an attempt to send the measures (along with other Republican education bills) to a conference committee for a quiet death. Scholar the Owl also suggests:

The process used to create Sen. Kelley's alternative social studies standards resembles that used to create the Profile of Learning in that the public was not involved, nor will they be involved. Sen. Kelley would set aside the months of work of the citizen Academic Standards Committee and MDE staff, which was subject to unprecedented public oversight, in favor of the partisan tweaking, in a few conference committee meetings at the Capitol, of proposals submitted by a few elites in the education establishment. Sounds familiar!

Yes indeed.