JULY 14, 2014Anti-Common Core fervor reaches the silver screen
(Texas) The momentum behind the anti-Common Core State Standards movement is coming to a theater near you later this month in the form of an interactive experience hosted by conservative author and radio personality Glenn Beck.
Audiences of We Will Not Conform can actively engage with Beck and other speakers on July 22 via social media to “develop tangible strategies in the pursuit of enacting real change in our schools” and “form a comprehensive plan to fight back against Common Core crafted in real time,” according to the event page.
“Parents in states where Common Core has been implemented are seeing the results firsthand,” Beck co-wrote with fellow conservative Kyle Olson in his book Conform: Exposing the truth about Common Core and Public Education. “All of the backlash we’re starting to hear about isn’t a result of the Tea Party enraging people; it’s because parents ultimately aren’t dumb. Unlike their kids, they actually can put two and two together, and they see that things aren’t adding up.”
The event follows the already mounting opposition to the Common Core including New York, Indiana, South Carolina, Maryland, Oklahoma, Georgia and Tennessee, which have all introduced or passed legislation to delay, modify or completely drop out of the adoption of the standards.
Though the U.S. Department of Education didn’t require that states adopt the Common Core, financial incentives were offered through the federal Race to the Top competition and the Obama administration also provided over $350 million to two state consortia – Smarter Balanced and PARCC – to develop new assessments aligned to the standards.
Still, complaints have risen on both sides of the isle.
Union leaders, for instance, have claimed a lack of curricula and time for proper training for teachers. In some cases, the lack of financial resources for implementing the standards is a key issue as well.
Conservatives have been more concerned with federal intrusion into education, which, historically, Anti-Common Core fervor reaches the silver screen :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet: