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The Pioneer Institute, a Massachusetts-based think tank, released a new study, “The Revenge of K-12: How Common Core and the New SAT Lower College Standards in the U.S.” to help parents, teachers, and policymakers understand the problems with the Common Core State Standards. Authors Robert Phelps and Common Core Validation Committee member R. James Milgram go in-depth on the background of the Common Core standards and the qualifications (or lack thereof) of the writers of the standards. Milgram, an emeritus professor of mathematics at Stanford University, was one of five members of the validation committee who refused to sign onto...

A D.C. sixth-grade teacher will apologize for an assignment that asked students to draw comparisons between former President George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler. The McKinley Middle School teacher sent students home with a Venn diagram and asked them to compare and contrast Bush and Hitler. At least one parent found it troubling on a number of levels. He told News4 he sees a certain lack of respect for the office of the president. And the instructions read "both men who abused their powers," which the parent said presents opinion as fact. D.C. Public Schools released a statement late Wednesday...

Megyn Kelly tonight brought viewers the first part of her contentious showdown with Professor Ward Churchill, best known for his controversial comments about the “little Eichmanns” who were in the World Trade Center when the planes hit on September 11th. ... Churchill stood by the Eichmann comment, saying, “You do not have to be the one who turned on the gas if you’re making it possible for the gas to be there.”

. . . . . . 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...

School’s back — and so is the liberal agenda! Across the country, parents and lawmakers are up in arms about an honors curriculum that gives new meaning to the phrase “history in the making.” The 95-page outline is so agenda-driven, educators complain, that basic U.S. facts are either distorted — or worse, omitted altogether. The College Board’s proposal is a study in liberal indoctrination — so much so that the Republican National Committee (RNC) formally opposed the idea in August. In a vote, the RNC concluded that the Advanced Placement (AP) curriculum is a “radical revisionist view” of America’s greatest...

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...

Over glasses of wine and a disco-spinning DJ, more than a dozen government-funded game developers showcased their products on a Wednesday night in Washington, D.C. Various government agencies have been paying these developers millions of dollars to create educational video games. The games ran the gamut from a Common Core-aligned, Shire-themed math challenge to a “judgment-free” historical role-playing game—and none of them were cheap. One young developer was eager to explain that the government spends more on these programs than most people might imagine. They’re usually funded through the Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR), on which the government spends...

A simple addition problem seems to become a little more complicated under Common Core. That is made very clear in a new “Homework Helper” segment that recently aired on WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, New York. In the new educational segments, local teachers attempt to help confused parents better understand their children’s Common Core homework. In the introductory segment, a math teacher takes nearly an entire minute explaining why 9 plus 6 equals 15. “Our young learners might not be all together comfortable thinking about what 9 plus 6 is. They are quite comfortable thinking about their friend 10,” the teacher says...

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...

Sen. Mike Lee has called on Americans to join him in the effort to abolish the federal Common Core education standards "As a U.S. Senator, I’ve seen the federal government make a mess of everything it touches," the Utah Republican wrote in the email sent out Monday morning. "And if they're allowed to stay, Common Core standards will be the ObamaCare of education," he wrote. "Common Core is the DC takeover of our school system. It will dumb down standards and cheapen the education our children receive." All kids in America "deserve the best education in the world. The only...

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...

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...

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence would like to ride into the presidency as he has his governorship: On the coattails of his predecessor, former Gov. Mitch Daniels. Unlike his years in Congress, PenceÂ’s governorship has been largely marked, not by forging crucial and substantive policies that reign in the administrative state and advance the cause of liberty, but by a refusal to make waves. In our current climate, that means governing as a technocratic Progressive. So while treating Hoosiers to essentially the stable status quo Daniels earned making tough and politically risky decisions, Pence has been traveling the country, proclaiming his...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) sued the US Department of Education Wednesday, accusing it of violating federal law and the US Constitution by strong-arming states into adopting the Common Core State Standards and assessments. “The federal government has hijacked and destroyed the Common Core initiative,” Governor Jindal said, in a statement. “What started out as an innovative idea to create a set of base-line standards that could be ‘voluntarily’ used by the states has turned into a scheme by the federal government to nationalize curriculum.”

As a result of its retreat from Common Core, a set of reading and math standards adopted by more than 40 states, Oklahoma was notified Thursday that it lost its waiver from key provisions of No Child Left Behind, the signature Bush-era education law. Under the waiver, Oklahoma — along with 42 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico — were released from the requirement under the old law that all students demonstrate proficiency in reading and math by 2014 or be declared failing. To receive the waiver, Oklahoma had committed to adopting more rigorous “college and career...

The U.S. Department of Education (USED) has punished the state of Oklahoma for repealing the Common Core standards and reverting to its previous academic standards by rescinding the state’s waiver from No Child Left Behind (NCLB), making it the second state ever to lose its waiver from the law. As Caitlin Emma of Politico reports, Indiana, on the contrary, was granted a one-year extension of its waiver from NCLB because, though Gov. Mike Pence (R) declared he was the first governor to repeal the Common Core standards, his state’s replacement standards are remarkably similar to the Common Core and, as...

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...

Jason Richwine at National Review Online reports that the evidence behind the Common Core standards is “really weak”, despite proponents’ claims that they are “research- and evidence-based.” Richwine dives into some of the lackluster research behind the standards: Now the Center for Education Policy at George Washington University has put together a compendium summarizing over 60 research papers related to Common Core design and implementation. If there is empirical evidence on the importance of strong standards, this is probably the place to find it. Unfortunately, only two papers in the entire compendium are devoted to measuring the impact of Common...

Need some help remembering: where Mike Huckabee has demonstrated his establishment thinking and his lack of understanding of conservative issues (outside of the social issues)- and where he has bought into big government solutions. I'm on a panel tomorrow about Huckabee in 2016 (I did not choose the topic) - and I need some memory jogging.