Pullman: Common Core's Bait-and-Switch

"Common Core supporters know many voters and politicians dislike federal meddling with education," writes Joy Pullman of School Reform News.

That's why they insist Common Core is “state-led” and “voluntary” even though the evidence shows these descriptions are deceptions. The Obama administration already has proved this by, at the repeated request of those who created Common Core, requiring states to adopt it in exchange for a chance at federal grants and to receive much-desired No Child Left Behind waivers. But these public relations pushes also disprove the “state-led” and “voluntary” promise, for how “voluntary” is a public policy instituted under the influence of federally funded advertising and with little open debate?

In short, federal funds are being used to convince the people the government forced to provide those funds that unelected bureaucrats and private nonprofit employees did the right thing with their money before the people got wind of the scheme.

Isn’t that a little backwards? A self-governing republic means lawmakers carry out the will of the people after judicious reflection and under the rule of law, instead of retroactively attempting to convince citizens we should want what unelected bureaucrats already did without the public’s knowledge or consent.

Common Core has leaders, all right, but they don’t govern by consent.

 For more discussion on the K-12 Common Core scheme, watch the discussion, Stopping Common Core National Standards and Testing, with researchers Joy Pullman and Lindsey Burke.

"School Reform Gets Cool"

"A whole lot of 20- and 30-somethings across the political spectrum now believe something’s seriously flawed in our public-education system," writes Naomi Schaefer Riley. Why the sea-change?

• Teach for America has for decades place recent graduates from top colleges — some 28,000 to date — as teachers in some of the nation's worst schools. "The incompetence and corruption are hard to forget," and "they talk about it to their peers, too."
• Urban areas are looking attractive to hip younger people who are marrying and starting families, and the terrible state of urban schools presents a roadblock to be challenged and overcome.
• Teachers unions are looking like dinosaurs bent on protecting undeserving members while preventing kids from getting a decent education.
• Vouchers, charter schools, and parent-trigger laws have become "the hot cause of the millennial generation."

"Finally," concludes Riley, "a popular trend worth getting behind."

Too Many Teachers in Public Schools

"Since 1970, the public school workforce has roughly doubled — to 6.4 million from 3.3 million — and two-thirds of those new hires are teachers or teachers' aides," writes Andrew Coulson. "Over the same period, enrollment rose by a tepid 8.5%. Employment has thus grown 11 times faster than enrollment. If we returned to the student-to-staff ratio of 1970, American taxpayers would save about $210 billion annually in personnel costs."

Taxpayers were promised that hiring teachers to reduce class sizes would improve student achievement. Did it work?