Dive Brief:
- A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center contends debate around the Common Core has been subverted by right wing propaganda.
- “Public Schools in the Crosshairs: Far-Right Propaganda and the Common Core State Standards" argues that right-wing extremists have championed an anti-Common Core agenda as a step in their bigger goal to dismantle public education.
- Because debate around the federal standards has been obscured due to far-right misinformation and propaganda, legitimate concerns about the Common Core are now being brushed aside or deemed invalid.
Dive Insight:
As the Common Core increases in importance nationally and becomes a larger subject of debate, it is important to identify legitimate concern and opposition from propaganda with a bigger goal. Unfortunately the Southern Poverty Law Center says this is not currently the case. The report identifies Fox News, the John Birch Society, tea party factions, and leaders of the Christian Right as parties obscuring the real debate around the Common Core.
The report uses a January Politico article as evidence, as it quoted an education plan draft from FreedomWorks — a conservative, libertarian nonprofit associated with billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
“First, mobilize to strike down the Common Core. Then push to expand school choice by offering parents tax credits or vouchers to help pay tuition at private and religious schools. Next, rally the troops to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. Then it’s on to eliminating teacher tenure,” Politico says in its summary of the FreedomWorks plan.