Wary about Common Core national standards? Well you should be.
The more parents and taxpayers learn about it, the less they like it. In a nutshell, Common Core is not a set of rigorous standards. It’s a set of political agendas masquerading as academics “voluntarily” adopted by the states (see here, here, and here).
A growing number of states have opted-out of Common Core or are considering doing so, most recently Tennessee and Mississippi. But not all opt-out plans are created equal. The Federalist’s managing editor Joy Pullmann has put together a must-read list of seven things “slick politicians will say to make you think they oppose Common Core.” Here are the top three:
1. Scott Walker: Let’s Create Another Educrat Committee
…We can see that by what Common Core legislation [Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker] did support during this year’s legislative session. It would have merely had a commission review Common Core and suggest changes to state Superintendent Tony Evers, a Democrat who signed Wisconsin into Common Core with the stroke of his pen months before Common Core was even published.
2. Mike Pence: But We Can’t Lose Our NCLB Waiver
…[Indiana Gov. Mike Pence] and other Republican leaders in the state demanded that any legislation to repeal Common Core (from the final language of the bill Pence signed into law) “[c]omply with federal standards to receive a flexibility waiver” from No Child Left Behind. Remember that? The law everyone hates that Pence refused to vote for while in Congress? Somehow, on the way from Congress to governor, he apparently reversed his opposition to what, as a U.S. representative, he criticized as “a complex regimen of curriculum subsidies and national testing.” …As Cato’s Neal McCluskey prophesied at the time, bowing to Washington ultimately forced Indiana to replace Common Core with…Common Core. Pence knew it, voted for it anyway, and proceeded to trot around the country telling people he’s the first governor to eliminate Common Core.
3. Mike Huckabee: It’s Not Common Core, It’s the Name
In February, according to Fox News, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told the people who created Common Core that “state education leaders should be urged to ditch the ‘Common Core’ name, because it had become ‘toxic.’ ‘Rebrand it, refocus it, but don’t retreat,’ Huckabee said. In other words, parents are stupid. They don’t hate Common Core because it’s an incomprehensible, academically mediocre, coercive, statist project. They hate it because they’re sheep. …Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad is among the many politicians taking Huckabee’s advice. [So’s outgoing Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, along with leaders in nearly 20 other states that have come up with anything-but-Common-Core names].
Pullmann’s final four are even more hard-hitting, summarized below, and voters should take care that as Common Core testing takes off this year, it’s more important than ever to uproot it before the federal government becomes even more firmly entrenched in American classrooms:
4. John Kasich: We Still Have Local Control
5. Jeb Bush: I Will Never Support a National Curriculum
6. Bobby Jindal: The Feds Ruined Common Core
7. Senators: I Can’t Do Anything Because It’s a State Issue