Alyson Klein reported on U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s recent remarks at the National Press Club.
First thing to note, apparently tea party activists are dumb and evil-hearted:
Duncan also challenged moderate Republicans to stand up to tea party conservatives on the budget and other issues. "There are plenty of smart, good-hearted Republicans," he said.
So if you’re not a moderate Republican you’re not smart and good hearted. Yeah, Duncan isn’t being political at all (eye roll) That comment wasn’t directed toward Common Core opposition (which by the way includes Democrats and progressives). That came later when asked about why the Common Core State Standards have become so toxic.
During a question-and-answer period, reporters pressed Duncan on why the Common Core standards have become so toxic, particularly with GOP activists. He gave his standard (no pun intended) answer: Common ore has become a lightening rod because of "political silliness", nothing more. (No mention however, of the way the Obama administration has tried to use common core to its political advantage, by including it in the Democratic Party platform in 2012, for instance.) Out in states and schools, educators have moved past the politics and are rolling up their sleeves and working on implementation, Duncan said.
Thank you Klein for pointing out what he left out. Educators may have moved on (and that is debatable) in part because they have had to. Of course all of this “political silliness” could have been avoided had the U.S. Department of Education not gotten involved and each state’s process of adoption included the legislature so “we the people” had the ability to give feedback through our elected representatives.
Could someone please explain how Texas received its NCLB waiver without adopting Common Core? Like many, I have often repeated the argument that the federal DoE is using NCLB waivers to arm-twist the states into adopting/keeping Common Core, but Texas obviously bucked that. Did Texas have to make other terrible concessions? (I haven’t been able to tell from the news reports.) Did the DoE cave to Texas in order to deflate an anti-Core talking point? I really want to understand this.
Schools that competed for race to the top grant $$ also agreed to align with the CC. That is why we see individual schools using the common core in states that haven’t ‘adopted’ the CCSS.
Right, but the entire state of Texas got its provisional NCLB waiver yesterday. So I just don’t understand what is going on. I know there has to be a catch, but I don’t know what it is.
What’s interesting is that in the real world, people from all over the political spectrum don’t like Common Core. I like to ask my liberal friends if they’d enjoy seeing a conservative government amend them on down the road. I see it as a bad tool no matter who’s holding it. *shrug*