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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...

Surveys: Americans, Teachers Souring on Common Core The New American 20 August 2014 Support for the Common Core national educational standards has plummeted in the past year among Americans who are familiar with the standards, according to two polls released this week.Among the general public, 53 percent of Americans support Common Core, according to an EducationNext poll, compared with 65 percent in 2013. The drop was even more precipitous among teachers. In just that one year, support for Common Core among teachers has sunk from 76 percent to 46 percent.A Phi Delta Kappa International poll, conducted by Gallup, noted that...

Support for Common Core educational standards has dropped as awareness of the program has spread over the past year, new polling finds. Among Americans who have heard a great deal about the standards, just 33 percent support the standards while 59 percent oppose them, the annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools reveals.

Did you know that the Declaration of Independence was really a breakup letter due to a "failing relationship."  See, the couple thought they would be "together forever but then things change."  One party thought the other was taking their relationship for granted. So it was time to break up. Alone time was needed . This was how the Declaration of Independence is presented in a Common Core lesson as reported by Nan Austin of the Modesto Bee in California. The funniest thing about her article is that Ms Austin obviously thought she was presenting Common Core in a good light...

While more people know what the Common Core State Standards are than last year, a majority of them oppose the standards, according to the 46th edition of the PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. Overall, the wide-ranging survey found, 81 percent of those polled said they had heard about the common standards, compared with 38 percent last year. However, 60 percent oppose the standards, generally because they believe the standards will limit the flexibility that teachers have to teach what they think is best. Last year's poll did not specifically ask respondents whether or not they...

A new survey shows that support for the federal education standards known as the Common Core is slipping. Education Next, an education journal from Stanford University's Hoover Institution, surveyed 5,000 respondents (including a number of educators) and found that just 40 percent of teachers back the Common Core compared to 76 percent just a year ago. At the same time, teacher opposition has tripled from 12 to 40 percent. The survey finds that support among the public is also slipping. In 2013, 65 percent of the general public favored the standards compared to 53 percent today. Across the states, momentum...

The U.S. Department of Education’s report, “Succeeding Globally Through International Education and Engagement” tries to show how American students will gain more international experience. The report features six quotes by the department secretary Arne Duncan, with phrases such as “recipe for protectionism and global strife,” “grow the pie for all” or “compassionate neighbors” and “global society.” Here are the six quotes, with the corresponding dates, in full: “The economic future of the United States rests not only on its ability to strengthen our education system but also on citizens in other nations raising their living standards. Thinking of the future...

August 16, 2014 College Board Erases the Founding Fathers. By Patrick Jakeway The classic novel Brave New World describes a future in which people have lost all of their liberty and in which they have become drugged robots obedient to a central authority. It also details how this control was first established. First, the rulers had to erase all history and all the people’s memory of a time before their bondage. Today, the history of George Washington's leadership has been erased in the new Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. History test/curriculum, taking effect in the fall of 2014. The College Board,...

North Carolina officials say there has been a huge increase over the past two years in the number of Tar Heel families who have pulled their kids out of public schools and begun educating them at home. The number of homeschools has jumped 27 percent since the 2011-12 school year, NewsObserver.com reports.As of last year, 98,172 North Carolinian children were homeschooled; that’s 2,400 students more than the number who attended a private school.While the sputtering economy is the reason families are choosing homeschooling over private schooling, the nationalized learning experiment (Common Core) is the main reason families are leaving the...

The highly acclaimed school standards called Common Core are becoming so unpopular that they may soon be politically untouchable. The critics are piling on from Glenn Beck to the Wall Street Journal, with senior academics and activist parents in-between. The latest is a detailed criticism of the mathematics standards by a prize-winning math professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Marina Ratner. It is refreshing that her criticisms are very specific and include examples of assignments that parents can see are ridiculous. Professor Ratner became alerted to the stupidity of Common Core by looking at the homework assigned...

A new, unprecedented bill passed by California’s State Senate on Thursday will encourage public schools to teach students about the historical significance surrounding Barack Obama’s status as the first African-American president of the United States of America. Assembly Bill 1921 passed with a 30-1 vote, according to the Associated Press. It was introduced by Assemblyman Dan Holden (D-Pasadena). Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) says the bill would require the Instructional Quality Commission (which facilitates much of California’s Common Core framework) to consider teaching students about Obama’s election within the context of past voter discrimination, the AP notes. Sen. Joel Anderson...

Following repeated requests from parents, the state of New York released the text of half the questions used in its new Common Core-aligned standardized tests. The test questions, used in tests for grades 3 through 8, include one question that encouraged students to cite evidence in favor of global warming. included several short written pieces that students had to read and respond to in order to demonstrate English mastery. One such piece was an article originally published on NASA’s website, “The Summer of 2012 –Too Hot To Handle?” The article discusses the high temperatures and drought during the summer of 2012...

Michael Mulgrew defends Common Core: ‘You sick people need to deal with us and the children that we teach’The wild remarks came during last month’s American Federation of Teachers convention in Los Angeles. ‘You sick people need to deal with us and the children we teach. Thank you very much!’ Mulgrew said. Teachers union honcho Michael Mulgrew unleashed a venomous screed directed at anyone who would dare threaten his beloved Common Core agenda. “If someone takes something from me, I’m going to grab it right back out of their cold, twisted, sick hands and say it is mine! You do...

Too much information. That's what parents are saying about the "birds and bees" lessons in a new health textbook for high school freshmen. Parents say the book mentions vibrators and bondage and is inappropriate for 13- and 14-year-olds. More than a hundred parents showed up at the district offices to check the book for themselves. The book at the center of the controversy is “Your Health Today.” In less than three weeks 2, 400 ninth graders will be using the text book in their health classes. But already more than 1,200 people have signed a petition to pull the book,...

New history curriculum standards proposed for top high school students leave out such American icons as Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King, Jr., paint colonists as bigots and gloss over the Greatest Generation's fight to save the world from Nazi Germany, according to conservative education activists who want the framework delayed — and perhaps scrapped altogether. “And you’re not going to find Thomas Jefferson and the House of Burgesses and the cradle of democracy either,” said Larry Krieger, who retired in 2005 after more than three decades in the classroom. “And finally, you’re not going to find Benjamin Franklin and...

The political fight over Common Core academic standards reached an absurd level last week when Gov. Bobby Jindal filed a lawsuit arguing that an agreement he signed four years ago "threatens Louisiana's sovereignty as a state." In a way, he is suing himself. The governor signed the memorandum of understanding in 2010 for Louisiana to take part in Common Core and the development of a multi-state test to measure student achievement. His administration even pushed in 2012 for legislation to strengthen the state's commitment to the new standards. The effort, which originated with the National Governors Association, wasn't controversial then....

By Matthew Burns Raleigh, N.C. — Gov. Pat McCrory on Tuesday signed legislation designed to replace the controversial Common Core academic standards in North Carolina public schools with standards drawn up by a new state commission. The standards were adopted by the state several years ago. But their implementation in the 2012-13 school year angered some parents, who said they were inappropriate in several areas. For the past year, those critics have been pushing lawmakers to repeal the standards. McCrory has supported Common Core in the past. Just last month, he said the push to repeal the standards "is not...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) called on state lawmakers Thursday to pass a bill in January that would repeal the Common Core standards and replace them with “standards set by people in Wisconsin.” According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Walker released a statement Thursday afternoon, just hours after two Republican state senators, Leah Vukmir and Paul Farrow, issued a joint press statement calling for a delay in the use of the Smarter Balanced Assessments (SBAC) that are aligned with the Common Core standards. Earlier in the year, Walker helped draft a bill that would create a state board to replace...

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) has signed legislation that provides for a task force to write new education standards that will eventually replace the Common Core in his state. Nixon’s office announced his approval of the measure Monday, the last possible day the governor could take action on bills passed earlier this year, local news KMBC.com reports.The Republican-led Missouri legislature, which has battled the standards since their adoption in 2010, approved HB 1490 23-6 in the state Senate and 135-10 in the state House. Originally, the bill was intended to ban the Common Core standards entirely.Increasing numbers of states are repealing...

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Legislature had the authority to repeal Common Core education standards for English and math in the state's public schools. ... Conservative groups maintained that the standards represented federal intrusion into Oklahoma's public education system, and Gov. Mary Fallin signed into law legislation repealing the standards last month.