Common Core Common Sense: Why It’s Illiberal and Unconstitutional
By Dr. Daniel B. Coupland On May 29th, 2009, Arne Duncan, the new Secretary of Education for the Obama Administration, gave a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. In the speech, he said, We want to raise the bar dramatically in terms of high standards. What we have had as a country, [...]
Kids Who Move Across State Lines
One of the arguments behind having centralized national standards, such as the Common Core State Standards or Next Generation Science Standards, is the argument that kids who move from say Washington State should have the same standards if they move to Iowa. Since our culture has become more mobile it seems like a compelling argument. [...]
“State-Led” Common Core Primarily Had Only Five Writers
Joy Pullmann at School Reform News wrote an excellent piece that helps to further demonstrate that the Common Core State Standards were not state-led. While there were many people who served on various committees and work groups all of the feedback was filtered by only five people. After giving a brief history of what led [...]
The Real Truth About the Common Core State Standards
Wisconsin legislators invited Kathleen Porter-Magee of the Fordham Institute to testify before a joint committee on education about Common Core Standards. She also wrote “The Truth about Common Core” for National Review online. Ms. Porter-Magee’s testimony and article lack a basic understanding of the reasons that tax payers are opposed to Common Core. A most [...]
What Does It Take to Stop Common Core? Defund It.
Michael McShane of American Enterprise Institute wrote a guest post at the Washington Post’s education blog, Answer Sheet. He asked, is it really that easy to block the Common Core State Standards? He was responding to the Michigan Legislature pausing funding for the Common Core. To try and stop the Common Core, (Tom) McMillin introduced, [...]
Constraining Parental Choice and Increasing Federal Power Were Necessary to Advance Common Core
Jay P. Greene had a post up a few days ago that I wanted to highlight. To become something meaningful Common Core requires more centralization of power than is possible under our current political system. Pushing it forward requires frightening reductions in parental control over education and expansions of federal power. These are not the [...]
Arizonans Fighting the Funding of the Common Core
We wanted to highlight work that is happening in Arizona currently spearheaded by Arizonans Against Common Core. They are currently trying to keep the Arizona Legislature from funding implementation of the Common Core. Here is an update that Jennifer Reynolds sent me via email: We are currently fighting Budget Appropriations for further implementing Common Core [...]
Indoctrination in Common Core ELA Aligned Texts
Oak Norton of Utahns Against Common Core made a video last month point out indoctrination that exists in textbooks that are used in his state that are aligned to the Common Core ELA standards. The standards themselves don’t indoctrinate, but the curriculum is susceptible for this – especially there is a shift toward using more [...]
