Governor Bobby Jindal’s Commitment to Common Core Gone With The Wind
Remember when the National Governors Association told us that Common Core was our friend? It was not that long ago. The year was 2010. Way back then a states-led effort to develop the Common Core State Standards was adopted. For near a year, state leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, two territories and the District of Columbia worked together to establish academic benchmarks. Louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal was among them. And for a time, all was well. Jindal supported the plan created by Governors. Then, suddenly everything changed. Governor Jindal saw his public. The memorandum of understanding he signed in 2010 establishing that Louisiana would take part in Common Core and develop a multi-state test to measure student achievement was no longer his friend. His own push to strengthen the state’s commitment to Common Core definitely had to end. Today we cross the political bend…Governor Bobby Jindal’s commitment to Common Core is Gone with the Wind.
By alana.semuels@latimes.com | Originally Published at The Los Angeles Times. August 27, 2014 | (Photo : Reuters) Political watchers are adding the Common Core to the list of issues disconnecting the Republican establishment from its grassroots.Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal filed a suit against the Obama administration Wednesday, joining a conservative-led effort to challenge controversial national education standards knows as the Common Core, which Jindal says violate states’ sovereignty.
“Common Core is the latest effort by big government disciples to strip away state rights and put Washington, D.C., in control of everything,” Jindal said in a statement.
Jindal names the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in the suit, which argues that states are forced to cede their “sovereign authority over education policy to the federal government” to receive federal grants and police waivers linked to adoption of the standards.
The Common Core outlines skills and knowledge that public school students should acquire in each grade from kindergarten through high school and promote a deeper focus on critical thinking over rote memorization.
Jindal, who was once a proponent of the Common Core, has battled educators in his own state over the issue in recent weeks. He withdrew the state from the standards in June, but education advocacy groups sued and a state judge ruled last week that the Common Core would stand in Louisiana.
Jindal’s lawsuit comes as part of a campaign by conservatives to question the standards.
Last month, television personality Glenn Beck, who has recently published “Conform: Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education,” held a two-hour simulcast in movie theaters across the country to criticize the standards. Indiana’s State Board of Education voted earlier this year to drop the Common empathyeducates – Governor Bobby Jindal’s Commitment to Common Core Gone With The Wind:
