News

Even Gates-Funded Education Week Calls Florida Efforts "Repeal-Lite"

July, 2014

Perhaps now that even the Gates-funded, pro Common Core propaganda organ EdWeek describes Florida's standards changes as "Repeal Lite," the officials in the Legislature and Governor Scott's administration will quit trying to insult the intelligence of and deceive the public about the state being "on a different path" and the "Florida Standards" being different than Common Core.  Here is what they said about Florida's efforts:

'Repeal Lite' Strategy Seen

Florida, where state lawmakers rebuffed legislation to put the brakes on the common core, could end up being an archetype for states moving to re-examine the standards rather than repeal them outright.

After soliciting public input on where the common core in Florida should be changed, the state school board adopted some alterations to the standards in March. But officials did not dump or vastly change the common core. (Adoption guidelines for the standards said that states can supplement the common core with their own specific standards, up to an additional 15 percent worth of standards.)

Cato's Neal McCluskey takes apart the weak defense of the standards in light of so much opposition by proponent Chris Minnich of the Council of Chief State School Officers:

Some opponents of the common standards say their real concern is not primarily what's in them, but whether states now make decisions that aren't tainted, in critics' view, by pro-common-core financial incentives offered by the federal government in the Obama administration's Race to the Top grant competitions and waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act. To that extent, the opponents see marked progress.

"If a state really thinks common core is the best thing to do, then they should adopt it. I don't want them to adopt it because they want to get federal money, or want to get a federal waiver," said Neal McCluskey, the associate director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank.

Mr. McCluskey said Mr. Minnich's espousal of a general push for higher standards is, in fact, an implicit concession that the common core is taking more hits than supporters anticipated it would a few years ago.

And Mr. McCluskey said that he expects opposition to the common core to continue, and to spike at the start of 2015, when many state legislatures start new sessions.

Bottom line: Common Core is in real trouble and momentum is building against it, despite the well-funded lobbying and PR blitz and no amount of "lipstick on a pig" can help them.


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