There is a growing rebellion by the states against the top-down national education standards being pushed by the federal government, known as Common Core.
Indiana was the first state to pull out of the Common Core, recently followed by Oklahoma and South Carolina, and are setting education standards at the state and local level.
Lawmakers in over 30 states are currently working on legislation to pull their states out of Common Core as well.
Opposition to Common Core is shaping up to be a major factor for conservatives and Republicans leading up to the 2016 campaign season, as more and more people are demanding their Governors and legislatures do something to stand against the national educational standards, according to WND.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal took Executive action recently to reject Common Core in his state.
Jindal announced June 18 that he had contacted Common Core’s copyright owners – the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers – to tell them that he was terminating the contract tying his state to Common Core. He then notified the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, that the state is dropping the test meant to measure compliance with Common Core.
Jindal also suspended funding for PARCC, pending an investigation into the state Department of Education’s handling of the PARCC contract under Supt. John White, who said last week that Louisiana schools will continue implementing Common Core. Critics allege that White secretly handed a no-bid contract to PARCC in violation of state law.
Jindal’s efforts to rid Louisiana of Common Core are serious too, says Mercedes Schneider, a Louisiana educator and author of a book on the failure of national education reform efforts.
“He looked like, for the first time, he was being honest, not just saying this for the cameras,” Schneider told WND. “Now, is it to his political advantage? Yes, because he wants to be the Republican nominee in 2016. But is this a real effort by him to get out of Common Core. Yeah, it’s real.”
“The Office of Contract Review is investigating White and Jindal could use the threat of criminal charges as leverage against him,” Schneider said. “Jindal is the governor and he’s a very well-connected governor. We are very volatile in Louisiana but are we out of Common Core? It’s very much up in the air right now. Even the state board is undecided right now but funding is suspended and there will be no PARCC. There was no open bidding for that contract in 2010. So are we out of Common Core? Yeah, I think we’re out.”
Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant is hinting that his state might be the next state to pull out of Common Core.
“I think Common Core is a failed program, and the United States is beginning to realize that,” Bryant said. “Governors all across America are realizing states can do it better.”
Teachers across the country are rejecting the assessment based, test driven national standards too, with a growing nationwide association of teachers saying they have lost faith and confidence in the Obama administration’s education policies.
“The Badass Teachers Association (BATs), an association of over 48,000 teachers, has taken a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. This vote signifies that teachers around the nation do not support the educational agenda set forth by the Obama Administration and Secretary Duncan. Race to the Top fails to serve our neediest children and it fails to address race and class inequalities in the education system,” the statement read.
BATs co-founder Mark Naison, in a letter to Obama, wrote: “The joy and creative learning that your own children experience in one of the nation’s top private schools are being driven out of public schools throughout the nation with startling rapidity. Teachers work in fear. Students learn under extreme stress. Parents wonder why their children have started to hate school.”
Some people are warning against celebrating too soon over the demise of Common Core, as there are powerful establishment figures behind the push to implement the nationwide standards.
Anita Hoge, a Pennsylvania-based education consultant and expert on the global push toward assessment-based education standards, points out that Jeb Bush and Bill Gates are doubling down on their efforts to counter the backlash and get Common Core fully implemented. Bush launched a new TV ad campaign recently promoting Common Core and Gates has his people working behind the scenes in almost every state.
Hoge warns that some of the states pulling out of Common Core may be simply rebranding the standards with their state’s label, but the fundamental basics of the standards and curriculum are remaining the same.
One backdoor channel Hoge is keeping her eye on should Common Core go down in flames, is the EASA flexibility waivers that Obama’s Department of Education put in place allowing states to bypass certain penalties for not meeting No Child Left Behind benchmarks and for qualifying for Title 1 status even if the school doesn’t meet the required 40 percent poverty threshold. This means the schools would fall under low-income guidelines and bring numerous federal rules into play, including the adoption of “college and career ready standards” with “aligned assessments” to measure adherence to the standards, according to U.S. Department of Education documents obtained by WND.
“I’m hoping that some people just wake up to the fact that they really have to do their own research,” Hoge said. “We could be looking at the fake repeal of Common Core in many states. Nobody’s talking about the waivers.”
It is certainly good news that an increasing number of states are removing themselves from the Common Core, but the warnings should also be heeded. Opponents of the federally-backed national standards must remain vigilant that they aren’t being tricked with slick rebranding, double talk, or hidden federal rules and mandates that can suck their children and school systems back into the federal fold.
Common Core is bad news and must be done away with. Bureaucrats in Washington DC and national think tanks don’t know the various and differing needs facing children in school districts across the country. The Department of Education needs to be reined in at the very least, and preferably abolished. Control of standards and curriculum must be returned to the states and localities who are better positioned and more aware of the needs of their students.
Common Core is one of the main reasons why we should privatize the public school system, with a voucher system to give equal opportunity to all students to attain a decent education.