Will the Common Core Lobby Bully the Left as it Has Bullied the Right?

An increasingly diverse group is standing up to the Common Core bullies

The left and the right are combining forces in opposing Common Core.  The pro-Common Core lobby is surrounded by all sides.

From The National Educational Policy Center (NEP and Susan Ohanian.org: Finding Common Ground on the Common Core:

Ohanian Comment: Most media position opposition to the Common Core as a Teapot phenomenon. I'm hardly a Teapartier. Stephen Krashen is hardly a Teapartier. Sam Smith of Progressive Review is hardly a Teapartier. And so on.
 


Much conservative opposition is informed by solid research. And progressive research shows the same thing. 



Michigan Rep. Tom McMillin (R-Rochester Hills) has asked Achieve, Inc. "repeatedly" to see the minutes or other records of meetings where the content standards were developed.



This should be the rallying cry of both conservatives and progressives: Show us the meat! Show us how these standards were developed.



I want to know who chose David Coleman and gave him the crown.

More and more folks from both sides of the aisle want to know why the American educational system has been taken over by public/private partnerships.  Ohanian makes a simple request: show us how the standards were developed.  And just how (and why) did David Coleman become the kingmaker of standards when his teaching experience was tutoring students one summer?

NEPC includes an article written by Rob Jenkins in the newtoncitizen.com furthering the argument that this has ceased to be only a teaparty concern and liberals distrust the nationalization of education as well:

What isn't as well publicized is the fact that many liberals object to the Common Core, too. A good friend of mine, an Obama supporter whom I would describe as center-left -- that is, not exactly a Tea Partier -- and who is vehemently opposed to the Common Core, was kind enough to share with me some of his objections and consent to my quoting him here.
 


The first problem with the Common Core, he notes, is that it's "corporatist, not capitalist ... driven more by perceived Chamber of Commerce needs than student needs. While a good education may prepare a student for a good job, career training should not be the primary purpose of public schools."



Second, "the Common Core is a top-down initiative developed at the federal level and 'incentivized' on states without extensive feedback from states or their citizens."



Third, "the Common Core does not reflect any consensus on the part of teachers."



Fourth, "the Common Core takes the emphasis away from reading literature and shifts it onto reading pamphlets and government documents, which presumably train workers better."



Fifth, "the Common Core has not been field tested. Many states have adopted the Common Core without even knowing exactly what it is, aside from some clever packaging."



Finally, he says, "the Common Core is No Child Left Behind on steroids," adopting "the worst high-stakes testing elements of NCLB ... despite spotty evidence at best that NCLB has succeeded."

His last paragraph should worry the Common Core proponents.  They are being questioned by teapartiers to liberals:



So if both conservatives and liberals think the Common Core is a bad idea, who exactly is pushing it? That's a question well worth asking, one that all of us, left and right, should keep in mind next time we go to the ballot box.

Here are some questions for the pro-Common Core spokespeople:

• Are you ready to call those on the left as wearing tin-foil hats?  (You can't call them "teabaggers")  
• What derogatory words/phrases are you going to use for the liberals who disagree with your corporate takeover of education?  You've tried to marginalize those on the right who don't like Common Core.  You might have quite a handful with those on the left who are beginning to question a nationalized education reform plan.  
• Will the pro-Common Core lobby bully the left as it has bullied the right? 

Remember the famous David Coleman line in his speech to educators when talking about the state of education?  From Susan Ohanian in substancenews.net:

“[A]s you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think.” Thus, Common Core Standards architect David Coleman delivered [1] the core pedagogy of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to educators gathered at the New York State Department of Education in April 2011. Listen to a few more of Coleman’s proclamations and you have to ask yourself if this is a man of deep experience and rectitude or just a cuckoo bird let loose on a hapless bunch of educrats who don’t know how to voice dissent. Coleman was on stage one hour 59 minutes in Chancellor’s Hall decreeing the new reality of teaching in public schools across America. No one in the audience challenged his bizarre declarations.

Maybe they were in a state of shock.

The Common Core proponents are now being questioned by people who are demanding the elitists "give a s**t" and provide answers about how tax dollars are being spent, how teachers are evaluated and what/how students are learning.  Americans on both the left and the right can only be bullied so much.  What David Coleman said in that speech encapsulates what the pro-Common Core lobby and politicians supporting CCSS think about the average American.  CCSS supporters have employed bullying tactics in the adoption of the standards, then to the implementation, and when responding to critics.

How will the Common Core bullies respond to an increasingly diverse group of people clamoring for them to go home and to leave us alone?

Educational Reform: It's All George Bush's Fault! Or Right Wing Corporate Greed!

Does this book have ALEC's name on it or the president's?  Who should shoulder the blame for ed reform policies? Rightwing (and other) organizations or Obama?

We have four more years of Obama's educational blueprint.  Some progressives believe this blueprint is being written by right wing organizations.  The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been tagged as right wing because it is funded by private corporations to boost corporate power and profits.  It establishes model legislation for states to use in education as well as other areas.  Think of it as private corporations tapping into taxpayer funding via legislative models (such as charter schools).  StudentsFirst also fits the mold of wanting to create more quasi private/public programs, but founder Michelle Rhee is a Democrat.  Like the heavily demonized right wing organizations, she apparently also loves money, power and control and has fit herself nicely in the "free market" niche that really isn't "free market".  Her TFA program and push for charter schools uses taxpayer money for private companies, which does not meet the test of a true "free market".   She is not technically rightwing (because of her political affiliation) but she certainly fits the mold of private corporations determining how tax money is spent.


Whether or not the organizations funding these "reforms" are left or right is inconsequential and the privatization blame of the educational system should not be placed on the corporations.  These organizations are just doing what corporations are allowed to do via political decisions.  The politicians and appointed officials are the ones to hold responsible in educational legislation, mandates and waste of billions of dollars.  Obama and Arne Duncan are regulating and/or mandating Race to the Top state and district grants, common core standards, teacher evaluations, FERPA revisions.....but  many progressives believe Obama was still the best presidential candidate even though he went against their educational ideas.  Government officials have the power to allow the corporations to use private money in a "free market" ruse and they are ultimately responsible for the privatization of education.

Whether or not Romney would have restored educational control to the states, we'll never know.  I'm not holding my breath that Obama's associate and friend Bill Ayers' letter imploring Obama to change his educational stance will make one iota of difference in the centralization/privatization of education.  It doesn't matter to Obama which private corporations/think tanks are providing services necessary to implement the Federal mandates. Disappointed progressives should be holding politicians/appointed officials accountable for allowing this transformation of education to occur.  When Race to the Top funding was approved, the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House.  The politicians and appointed officials are the ones are responsible for these mandates stagnating public education, not the "right wing" educational cabal now profiting from this legislative decision.

Do you believe George Bush's NCLB was bad?  It was.  So what does Obama do when he assumed office? Did he relax federal standards and mandates?   Not by a long shot. He pursued RTTT, teacher accountability tied to test scores, waivers to NCLB (referred to as NCLB on steroids) and financial help to states by requiring them to sign on to common core standards.  However, the educational progressives believe Obama is preferable to a candidate who at least espoused states' rights for educational decisions.

We will probably witness four more years of mandates that the Federal Government can't fund and neither can the states or districts.  Teachers will complain, students will perform badly on common tests, and public education will decline even further.  Private corporations (whether from the left or right side of the aisle) will realize tidy profits as a result of the federal mandates on what constitutes a good education (more computers, common assessments, etc).  Meanwhile the progressives will blame it all on the "right" wing school choice organizations (even as some are made up of dedicated Democrats) instead of where it belongs: the Obama administration and the Democratically controlled Congress and Senate in 2008-2010.

Why George Bush is a target for the progressives for his poor educational decisions while Obama deflects criticism for even more onerous educational policies is puzzling.  Right wing organizations  keep getting blamed for educational failure, privatization of public schools and wasted funding.  The blame belongs with the politicians allowing this to occur, both on the national and state level.  But somehow, I bet this is still George Bush's fault.