Extreme Common Core rhetoric clouds serious debate
The Common Core State Standards initiative was started with bipartisan support. But new and often nonsensical criticism from right-wing Republicans is making it seem as if the Core is a partisan issue, and, further, is clouding important and serious-minded criticism about the standards and their implementation.Far right-wing commentators, such as Glenn Beck, are shouting that the Core is essentially an effort by the federal government to rip children out of the control of their parents.Beck said recently:
You as a parent are going to be completely pushed out of the loop. The state is completely pushed out of the loop. They now have control of your children.
Conservative commentator Phyllis Schlaffley, calling the Common Core “Obama Core”, said in a recent piece:
Obama Core is a comprehensive plan to dumb down schoolchildren so they will be obedient servants of the government and probably to indoctrinate them to accept the leftwing view of America and its history.
Actually, probably not.
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee recently approved a resolution calling the standards an “inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our