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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday night he is standing by his support for the Common Core school standards rejected by a segment of the GOP’s most conservative members, including other potential presidential candidates. “Raising expectations and having accurate assessments of where kids are is essential for success, and I’m not going to back down on that,” Bush said during a congressional fundraiser in suburban Des Moines. […] Deflecting questions about why some potential GOP presidential prospects have shifted on the issue, Bush told reporters after the event: “I know what I believe. I believe in higher standards that...

As schools adopt new education standards and rely more on computers in the classroom, a group of New Hampshire senators want to make sure the basics of learning cursive and multiplication tables don’t get left behind. “You definitely need to teach typing and keyboarding and all of that, but kids do need to be able to sign their names, they do need to be able to read the Founding Fathers documents,” said Republican Sen. Nancy Stiles, the main sponsor of a bill that would require public schools to keep teaching both. “(Cursive) is an art and a skill that shouldn’t...

A New Mexico eighth-grader was suspended from school for letting her classmates know that they could opt out of the state’s new online standardized test. 12-year-old Adelina Silva printed out the forms from her own school’s website and was rewarded with a trip to the principal’s office. Adelina and her mother, Jacqueline Ellvinger, appeared on “Fox and Friends” this morning to explain what happened and why Adelina was punished. “I wanted the parents to know that they had the option to let the student either take the test or not,” Adelina said. …

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush may find out that Wall Street money will not buy him the love of GOP primary voters like it does mainstream media elites who are rushing to cast him as the 2016 frontrunner. As soon as Mitt Romney announced that he would not make a third White House run, the mainstream press immediately anointed Bush as the clear Republican 2016 frontrunner. They made their pronouncements even though Bush had not yet proven with his speeches that he can be a successful candidate in the digital age and neither had the best ground game nor the...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is to deliver what aides call an “optimistic, conservative vision for the future” in his first unpaid speech since declaring his interest in a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. […] Wednesday’s speech is the first in a series of stops his aides call his “Right to Rise” tour, borrowing from his economic mantra and the name of the political action committee he formed in December. Bush’s speech, aides said, is aimed at underscoring his desire to reinvigorate the middle class, which he argues has languished despite the ongoing economic recovery. Conservative economic policies,...

No amount of false bravado, professorial sounding outrage or political denials can erase the truth about Common Core Dr. William J. (Bill) Bennett, former Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan from 1986 to 1988, advocates for Common Core in a CNN op-ed published on Dec. 2, 2014, and as recently as Feb. 1, 2015, in a televised debate with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. In his CNN op-ed, Dr. Bennett concludes that because America “offers no better alternative”, we should accept Common Core. His argument dovetails closely with establishment Republican and Democrat ideology; one imbedded with flawed logic, compounded falsehoods...

Last year, government scientists tell us, was the hottest year on record. This news is terribly — what's the word? — inconvenient. No, not for polar bears or drought victims or coastal dwellers. It's inconvenient for politicians across the country who, despite whatever data or overwhelming scientific consensus might be proffered, insist on denying global warming. In recent weeks, West Virginia has snatched national headlines for its attempts to doctor school science standards to discredit climate change. The sixth-grade science curriculum, for example, was amended so that, rather than having students "clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the...

Gov. Bobby Jindal continued his attack on the Common Core academic standards Sunday in an appearance on Fox News. Jindal has sued the federal government, saying the mathematics and English benchmarks are tantamount to a national curriculum and illegally infringe on state sovereignty. "This is a violation to the 10th Amendment of the Constitution. Existing federal law says that the federal government shouldn't make curriculum decisions," he told host Chris Wallace Sunday. snip

"Do you just want your kids to be test machines and cheap workers for corporations?"Lily Tang Williams, a mother of three, testified before the Colorado State Board of Education that Common Core was similar to the education she received growing up in Mao’s Communist China. “Common Core, in my eyes, is the same as the Communist core I once saw in China,” Williams said. “I grew up under Mao’s regime and we had the Communist-dominated education — nationalized testing, nationalized curriculum, and nationalized indoctrination.” In a post at FreedomWorks, Williams wrote about her experience with the Chinese education system: Our...

According to Onan Coca, "Dr. David Pook is a professor at Granite State College in Manchester, New Hampshire. He's also the chair of the History Department and one of the authors of the Common Core standards. He was a guest at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics when he opened up on his reasons for participating in the creation of the Common Core standards." So what were his reasons? You are about to learn the motivation behind Common Core through one of its authors. The truth is, not surprisingly to some, that Common Core is very racist and very political....

[T]he current "Common Core" mandate, by which the federal government has enlisted the states to federalize the U.S. school curriculum, cut[s] off traditional local control. Once you control what is taught, you needn’t care where, by whom, or how that is done, you have eliminated all competitors... Common Core represents a fair start toward total federal control of U.S. education... [T]he Progressives so enamored of "diversity" are... dead set against any diversity in educating citizens... [I]f one recalls the works of John Dewey, the patron saint of the progressive education movement, the avowed goal is... to turn out useful and...

California public schools do an inadequate job of teaching students about gay and lesbian history, despite a 2011 law that requires schools to teach such lessons, according to a national panel of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history scholars led by a Sonoma State University professor.

SARASOTA, Fla. – The uproar over Common Core has created misinformation and serious concerns as to its efficacy. To clear up the confusion, once and for all, we must look at the birth of Common Core to see the vision guiding its mission. However noble Common Core may sound, it is but a host carrier for a radical disease that must be exposed. commoncoreappleCommon Core’s roots date to 2007 when David Coleman and Jason Zimba wrote: Math and Science Standards That Are Fewer, Clearer, Higher to Raise Achievement at All Levels. The paper outlined a proposal to solve the math...

. . . . . . I have written on various occasions (here and here) that I could not support the Common Core standards because they were developed and imposed without regard to democratic process. The writers of the standards included no early childhood educators, no educators of children with disabilities, no experienced classroom teachers; indeed, the largest contingent of the drafting committee were representatives of the testing industry. No attempt was made to have pilot testing of the standards in real classrooms with real teachers and students.. The standards do not permit any means to challenge, correct, or revise...

The Gates Foundation has been very busy trying to figure out ways for governors, state boards, and commissioners of education to pretend they are giving up Common Core’s standards or tests, while ensuring these states still have warmed-over versions in place to satisfy Bill Gates’ ambitions. We now have many examples of states that have gone through the motions to placate the still-growing army of parents, teachers, state legislators, and other citizens demanding a stronger, not weaker, public school system. But, instead of developing stronger alternative standards in place of Common Core’s misbegotten standards, some elected and appointed officials have deliberately...

DALLAS, Texas -- It is like a Texas sampler platter of the 2014-15 Common Core offerings served up around the state -- Sadlier "Common Core Enriched Edition" Vocabulary, Springboard and Carnegie Math. There is even a kindergarten handout that defines the importance of the term "Common Core." Parents are up in arms. More so, they are worried. They have heard endlessly that there is no Common Core in Texas. It is the law. Yet, this is what is coming home in the backpacks. To her surprise, a Boerne Independent School District (ISD) parent pulled out the "6 Math Terms to Know...

During a Friday conference call sponsored by Texas-based Women on the Wall, Stanford mathematician and former member of the Common Core Validation Committee Dr. James Milgram, told listeners that if the controversial standards are not repealed, America’s place as a competitor in the technology industry will ultimately be severely undermined. “In the future, if we want to work with the top level people, we’re going to have to go to China or Japan or Korea… and that’s the future we’re looking at,” Milgram said during the call that was part of a day-long Twitter campaign to target Indiana Gov. Mike...

Common Core, as it is known to the American public, has seen significant setbacks in recent months as parents and teachers have staged an open revolt against the government-mandated education standards. Its official name, the Common Core State Standards, was a one-size-fits-all education standard given by the federal government in English and math for grades K-12. However, the standards were put into place by private organizations and committees, but not approved by lawmakers or voters. mary fallin common core As we have noted, Common Core has a weirdly bipartisan coalition supporting it consisting of current Democratic officeholders such as the...

Where's the Intelligent Design in Ohio House Bill 597? Casey Luskin August 27, 2014 5:56 AM | Permalink Just as they did back in 2006, the Darwin Lobby and the media have concocted a story that intelligent design is going to be taught in Ohio. According to a recent article in the Columbus Dispatch, "Intelligent design could be taught with Common Core's repeal," Ohio House Bill 597 "would allow intelligent design and creationism to be taught alongside evolution in science classes." You might expect that a bill to "allow intelligent design and creationism to be taught alongside evolution" would say...

A Louisiana district judge removed Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s executive order banning Common Core testing on Tuesday. Mr. Jindal has been fighting an uphill battle since June with the state’s board of education to combat Louisiana’s participation in PARCC, a collective of states working together to develop standardizes testing based on Common Core. In a written opinion, Judge Todd Hernandez, said the injunction on testing that was granted at Mr. Jindal’s request caused anxiety within the school system. “The evidence is clear that this state of the unknown has caused anxiety and other harm to the parents, teachers, administrators and...