Free Republic

Jeb Bush’s most famous, or infamous, remark of the campaign season was that a Republican candidate must be willing to “lose the primary” in order to win the general election. For the most part, Bush has campaigned like he meant what he said: He’s defended his positions on immigration reform and Common Core, though they’re unpopular with much of the Republican base, and he angered conservatives on Capitol Hill by pushing for a confirmation vote on Attorney General Loretta Lynch, which some were trying to hold up at the time. But in the week leading up to the first Republican...

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina’s presidential campaign explained her past support for Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind today. Sarah Isgur Flores, Fiorina’s communications direct, sent Caffeinated Thoughts the following email: Carly does not support Common Core. As she has said, there is absolutely no evidence that the work of a big, centralized bureaucracy in Washington makes things better. In fact, there’s loads of evidence to the contrary. The Department of Education has been growing in size and budget for 40 years and the quality of our education continues to deteriorate. Carly has always believed that choice...

During the first round of the 2016 GOP presidential debates, Jeb Bush was pressured by the moderators to explain his history of pushing for Common Core implementation across the country. In his statement, Bush said: “I don’t believe the federal government should be involved in the creation of standards directly or indirectly, the creation of curriculum or content. It is clearly a state responsibility. I’m for higher standards…” In his statement though, Bush avoided the specific answer the moderators wanted, which was whether or not he did or did not endorse the current Common Core curricula be adopted by various...

In the spring of 2015, a nine-year-old boy named Dexter went to Disneyland with his family and found himself deeply unsettled — not by a scary ride or the unpleasantness of waiting in line, but by some of the most unsettling cultural issues of our time: racial and gender stereotypes. Disney, the world’s most prolific purveyor of pink plastic, has a long history of perpetuating gender stereotypes and feeding our unconscious biases, but what Dexter so astutely observed seemed like a particularly acute symptom of a larger cultural malady. .......... Dexter and Sybilla go to The Cathedral School of St....

This can’t be a tweet that Jeb Bush is going to like. Daniel Pfeiffer, a former senior advisor to President Obama for strategy and communications, expressed the White House’s gratitude to the former two-term Florida governor on Thursday, the day of the GOP presidential contender debates were held in Cleveland. For what? For supporting the Common Core State Standards and even helping them to persuade states to adopt them. Here’s the tweet Dan Pfeiffer ✔@danpfeiffer When I worked in the White House, we were always grateful to @JebBush for his efforts to help us urge states to adopt Common Core...

All about the Barack Hussein Obama Muslim connection to Common CoreIn the last few years we have seen a movement in our country to nationalize our educational system, to implement Common Core in all schools. Inside the schools, the most drastic change has been an overwhelming influence of Islam and Sharia law. Education publishing giant, Pearson, whose biggest investor is the Libyan Investment Authority, is a major supplier of Islam-oriented text books for American schools. As is the nation of Qatar.Pearson owners are deeply involved in the Muslim Brotherhood and linked to CAIR. “Muslim Brotherhood documents seized by the...

(Dec 16, 2012) This week, left-wing outlets, like NPR’s quiz show, Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! and the Huffington Post, as well as the British Telegraph, expressed surprise and concern that the new national Common Core standards will destroy the love of literature. The leftist outlets focused on favorites like Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird, but couldn’t seem to connect this unconstitutional federalization of education with their favorite presidential candidate. They should also be concerned about what the recently released test questions reveal about what the feds want: happy workers for the State....

The principal of an innovative West Harlem public school killed herself the day after her students took the state Common Core exams — which were later tossed out because she cheated ... Jeanene Worrell-Breeden, 49, of Teachers College Community School, jumped in front of a B train in the 135th Street station ... She was pulled out from under the train and taken to Harlem Hospital, where she died eight days later. The city Medical Examiner’s Office ruled it a suicide. The leap came at 9:20 a.m., less than 24 hours after her 47 third-graders wrapped up three days sweating...

Governor Christie spent the past week on the campaign trail hitting key issues that are popular with the conservative voters who likely hold the key to his success as a Republican candidate for president. His tour through the early voting states, which includes return trips to New Hampshire and Iowa this week, comes as his campaign and a super PAC supporting his candidacy are spending a combined $1 million to run political ads nationally on Fox News that show Christie criticizing President Obama over the Iran nuclear deal, just as the next round of horse-race polls are being conducted. The...

I would be remiss not to point out a line-item veto that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker made in the budget bill he signed. He made 104 line-item vetoes in the bill and one of them had to do with assessments. Walker stated he presented a budget which “(i)ncreases local control by affirming the authority of school districts to choose their own academic standards, provides a pathway to offering multiple student assessment options and prevents the mandatory application of the national Common Core Standards.” In his veto message he said (pg. 3) he then vetoed language in the bill that would...

A triumphant and unrepentant Donald Trump launched a barrage of personal attacks and name-calling on his campaign rivals Tuesday, most notably calling South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham an “idiot” handing out Graham’s cell phone number to the whole world He dismissed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as “weak on immigration,” and mocked Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s glasses and Hillary Clinton’s hand wave. “What a stiff, what a stiff, Lindsey Graham. By the way he has registered zero in the polls,” Trump said, at an appearance in Bluffton, S.C. “A total lightweight. In the private sector, he couldn’t get a job.”...

Suddenly, the gloves are off between Scott Walker and Jeb Bush. Surprisingly, Bush threw the first punch, sparking a back-and-forth between the two leading Republican candidates in early-state polls, both eager to highlight what they see as the other’s fatal flaw — Bush as the establishment shill and Walker as the foreign policy lightweight. It started during a town hall in Nevada Friday, when Bush took an unprovoked shot at Walker, portraying him as unserious and unsophisticated over a promise he made in his announcement speech last Monday to repeal the nuclear deal with Iran “on the very first day...

Senate bill 1177 is a bipartisan measure to federalize education, all in the name of preserving local control. It will be imposed on charter schools and all private schools that accept a nickel of aid. As I said 30 years ago, “If you take the government’s nickel, you also take its noose.” S-1177 is about to pass. Here is a warning: Protecting our children from increasing oppressions and loss of freedoms will require not allowing federal S.1177 to pass. The name of S.1177, which now sits in the Senate on Capitol Hill, is also: “The Every Child Achieves Act of...

With Election 2016 underway, and the cadre of Republican candidates prepped for initial debates, the attacks against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) have not abated, and from the right opponents have faulted Walker for his stance on Common Core. Breitbart’s Dr. Susan Berry reported in a heavily slanted (perhaps overly-long piece): Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has a history of shifting his stated positions on the controversial Common Core standards and inviting the federal government into his state’s education policy plans. Experts say his current position, of allowing school districts to “opt-out” of Common Core, would not rid his state of...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-17/ted-cruz-has-money-to-burn-the-gop

One thing about teaching that is easy for parents, policy-makers and others to forget is that working with students for hours every weekday to help them learn is very, very hard work. Even in the best of schools and even with supportive administrators, teachers have unrelenting jobs. In recent years, a growing number of teachers have found that reforms which force them to test students more than ever, collect more data than ever and attend more meetings than ever, are making the job literally impossible. That’s what happened to Scott Ervin, who has worked as a teacher, principal and discipline...

“Missing from Scott Walker’s AP Press Release…Common Core” By Donna Garner 7.13.15 Scott Walker has decided to announce for the Presidency today, but notice what has been left out of Scott Walker’s AP press release…any mention of Common Core. Leading up to today’s launch, Scott Walker meant to tout his supposed “success” at dumping Common Core in Wisconsin; but when the grassroots people of Wisconsin caught him in a lie, he was forced to retreat from his original press release and hope nobody noticed. We noticed! Instead of dumping Common Core as often publicly stated by Scott Walker once he...

Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s wife has moved to Chicago so the couple’s two daughters can attend the University of Chicago Lab School, arguably the most elite private school in Chicago — and certainly among the most expensive. Duncan has led the Department of Education since the outset of President Barack Obama’s administration. He will shuttle between Washington and Chicago for the remainder of Obama’s second term, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. The former chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools has been a forceful cheerleader for the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a set of K-12 math and language arts curriculum...

The House on Wednesday voted to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind law, resurrecting a bill that Republican leaders were forced to pull from the floor earlier this year due to conservative opposition. Passage fell narrowly along party lines on a vote of 218-213, with 27 Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition to nearly derail it on the floor. For most of the roll call, the bill had more votes against it than in favor. Many Republicans either held out their votes until the last minute or changed their votes under pressure from GOP leaders.

The Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives has worked a tremendous disservice on its members and the American children, parents, and taxpayers.  Yesterday, after heavy wrangling by Republican leadership, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5, the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). By failing to eliminate or even curb the federal testing mandates, the bill instead serves the testing industry rather than the people.  Under NCLB, that industry has grown to a $2 billion per year enterprise. As reported by PR Watch: School testing corporations have spent at least $20 million on lobbying along with wining and...