So often do avid boosters such as U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush extol the national standards for K-12 education as “rigorous,” it would be easy to conclude the adjective had become part of the name: The Rigorous Common Core State Standards.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s recent comments disparaging “white suburban moms” for protesting new national tests and curriculum mandates are not the isolated remarks of an out-of-touch elitist. His attitude is typical among bureaucrats from both parties regarding Common Core, but politicians who ignore this sleeper topic endanger themselves in 2014 and 2016.
For twenty weeks now, a diminishing troupe has gathered for “Moral Mondays” to protest the outcomes of North Carolina’s first Republican-led legislative session in 150 years. This spring, 2,000 or so people showed up for Moral Mondays protests at the state capitol, and more than 900 have been arrested for disrupting the legislature. On September 23, they numbered about 60.
Without question, Common Core standards fail to address the specific needs of a state or a child, but even most troublesome is that it is designed to produce a generation of progressive, liberal-minded adults and citizen activists who will see this nation in a way completely alien to what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they created a nation that offered such great hope and promise to future generations of Americans.
Indiana Schools Superintendent Tony Bennett is likely to win re-election this fall. But as he campaigns these last few weeks, Bennett would be wise to preempt a coming erosion in[…]