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FSCCC Statement - New University Chancellor Supports Common Core that Won't Prepare Students for Four Year Colleges

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition (FSCCC), an organization of thirtyeight state and national groups representing hundreds of thousands of Floridians, is deeply disappointed in the imminent appointment of Marshall Criser III as Florida's next university chancellor.  Criser has absolutely no academic experience, having worked in the business community his entire career. 

He also is a huge proponent of the Common Core standards which he misleadingly called in a recent op-ed, "The Florida Standards, our version of the Common Core State Standards," as if there is any difference.  The truth is that the state of Florida made a conscious decision to adopt the copyrighted Common Core standards word for word in 2010.  There is no Florida version of the Common Core. It is also clear from that column that Criser sees workforce skills training as far more important than academic education.

"I am appalled and deeply concerned that the new leader of Florida's university system would  support Common Core when even the principal architect of the math standards, Jason Zimba, has publicly admitted, '[Common Core is] not only not for STEM, it's also not for selective colleges,'" said Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch, and a co-founder of FSCCC.  "If Florida wants to continue its nation-leading economic recovery, it will need to actually educate its students, instead of merely training them in the low level, psychosocial workforce skills embedded in the Common Core."

"Our state is headed for serious academic and economic trouble if the incoming university chancellor supports these untried, academically inferior standards. Florida's students have already made great strides both nationally and internationally without Common Core," said Randy Osborne, director of education for Heartland Research and lobbyist for Florida Eagle Forum.  "We don't need trained workers. We need educated citizens.  Florida deserves better."