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, along with several other lawmakers,HB 4276, which specifically states, “The state board model core academic curriculum content standards shall not be based upon the Common Core Standards.”Now, trying to pass a bill to openly thwart the Common Core — which, it should be stated, Republican Governor Rick Snyder supports — is probably a bridge too far. To date, it appears that the bill, like several others throughout the nation, has stalled in committee.So what is a Senator (sic – he is a State Representative) like McMillin to do? Well, all he needs to do to stop the Common Core is make sure that it doesn’t get funded.That is exactly what he did.It appears that McMillan and other House Republicans were able to use the 11th hour conference
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.
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.
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 unnecessary by-products of a misguided Obama Administration over-reach. Constraining parental choice and increasing federal power were entirely necessary to advance Common Core. And they were perfectly foreseeable (we certainly foresaw these dangers here at JPGB).There is something either disingenuous or shockingly naive about the Fordham Institute’s horror at discovering federal involvement in the push for Common Core. And it is equally disingenuous or naive for conservative curriculum backers of Common Core to suddenly discover that the new regime may be more progressive nonsense rather than their fantasy of the triumph of E.D. Hirsch. We warned folks that federal coercion was central to the success of Common Core. And we
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 for the 2013-2014 school year. The Bill number is SB1483and we stopped this funding ($82 million for CC) in our Senate and we are working to stop this funding from “popping up again” in our House. We also stopped funding already in HB2047 for the Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) to PARCC transition bill which would fund the implementation, teacher training of CC, and further fund PARCC when it