Chris Christie Claims He Got Rid of Common Core in New Jersey. That’s Baloney.
In Thursday night’s Republican debate, Sen. Marco Rubio made a pointed attack against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, accusing one of his main rivals for a top spot in the New Hampshire primary of being pro–Common Core. Christie, though, thought he had a killer response: “Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey.” Too bad for Christie, the actual standards that constitute Common Core are still alive and well in his state. All Christie eliminated was the name.
In September 2011, Christie sent out a gushing press release about the Common Core standards, saying they would “equip [children] with the skills they need for college and a career.” By 2015 when he was gearing up for a run before a Republican primary electorate that considers Common Core to be anathema, Christie stood in front of an audience and said those standards were “simply not working.”
I was a teacher in New Jersey when Christie first started hemming and hawing over Common Core's waning national popularity. But not a single teacher I knew panicked. They knew he wasn't serious—and they were right. New Jersey is still using the exact same tests as before, ones that are aligned with the exact same Common Core standards for what students should master by each grade level. Christie may no longer call New Jersey’s educational standards “Common Core,” but for students in the state there is absolutely no difference.
In his 2015 announcement that New Jersey’s testing standards would be changed, Christie said he wanted new recommendations by the end of the year, which itself was a significant indication that he never intended to alter the standards in any serious way. Coming up with an entirely new set of standards takes years, not months. For Christie, Common Core was always intended to stay intact, with or without the name.
This tactic of conservative governors rejecting the unpopular-in-red-states name while keeping the substance isn’t new. Of the more than 40 states that have adopted the Common Core, one-third of them are now calling it something else, almostChris Christie didn't actually get rid of Common Core in New Jersey.:
