In the ongoing effort to marginalize and demonize anyone to the right of Josef Stalin, the Daily Beast declared Wednesday that opposition to Common Core is part of a radical plot by conservatives who seek to destroy public education as a whole. The first clue was the title used in Caitlin Dickinson's screed: "The Wingnut War On Common Core Is A Plot To Destroy Public Schools."
Instead of providing a thoughtful analysis of the problems with Common Core, Dickinson relied heavily on the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left organization that routinely excoriates conservatives and Christians. While the SPLC does good work in exposing hate groups like the New Black Panthers, it has also declared that mainstream Christian organizations that oppose gay marriage are "hate groups." As a result, one LGBT volunteer entered the offices of the Family Research Council and shot a guard.
Dickinson, echoing the SPLC talking points, called opponents of Common Core "wingnuts" with a "radical fact-free agenda that aims to destroy public education as a whole." "Hogwash" is a bit of an understatement.
"There are plenty of rational arguments for why the Common Core State Standards Initiative is not the solution to reforming public education in the United States," she wrote. Except for one paragraph, however, her article is nothing more than a "hate righty" hit-piece intended to paint all conservatives and Common Core opponents as mean, evil, cruel, stupid, religious hayseed hicks engaging in a propaganda war against the benevolent federal government.
Not once did Dickinson mention actual reports of issues raised by parents. For example, she failed to mention the lesson plan where students were asked to remove and replace two amendments from an "outdated" Bill of Rights. Nor did she mention the lesson plans that teach a messianic view of Barack Obama.
Additionally, Dickinson failed to mention a Common Core book that falsely teaches white voters rejected Barack Obama because of race. She also ignored a Common Core lesson plan that tells teachers to say "all right-wing extremist groups” are fascist. There are many, many more examples of this type of "education" children have been subjected to, but no one would ever know of these problems if all they ever read was Dickinson's article.
Perhaps Dickinson failed to mention these things because in her heart of hearts, she agrees. So instead of addressing very real issues brought up by parents and others concerned with providing a real education, she chose to attack everyone from Glenn Beck and Phyllis Schlafly to the Koch brothers, giving her left wing base all the red meat they need to bash conservatives.
In a piece at Fox News, Erick Erickson explained that he initially supported Common Core, but grew to dislike it and now actively opposes any politician who supports it. For Erickson, it's little more than an effort to create politically correct "worker bees."
"For many, Common Core is an abstraction that crazy people talk about on the Internet," he wrote. "For my child and millions of others, it is a very real problem and frustration. It is a corporate attempt to train up good worker bees at the expense of good citizens. It is a liberal attempt to train up worker bees who think the right things. It is a federal incursion through money."
He also wrote that opposition to Common Core "cuts across ideological lines, party lines, and demographics."
"And it is one in a long line of failures designed by the education elite who keep using our children as guinea pigs in new ways to teach thousand year old subjects. Math should be math, not an essay. English should be Shakespeare and Faulkner, not Holocaust denial," he added.