Dive Summary:
- Lawmakers in Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Indiana, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah are pushing back against the Common Core's new uniform standards for reading, writing and math, which were fully adopted by most states in 2010 and are currently being implemented.
- Dissent picked up steam last year and particularly divided Republicans, with Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley and eight other senators asking the Senate Appropriations Committee in an April letter to stop the Education Department from linking Common Core adoption to federal funding eligibility, and a Republican National Committee resolution calling the Common Core "inappropriate overreach."
- The resistance is surprising to the Foundation for Excellence in Education--an organization backed by Common Core supporter and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush--as spokeswoman Kristy Campbell notes that conservatives have usually favored higher standards and accountability.
From the article:
... “The fact that they are opposed to Common Core now is a little surprising and disappointing given the fact that states came together to solve a need,” Campbell said, adding that the new standards will allow for state-by-state comparisons that haven’t been possible before. “We are going to have more rigorous assessments that are going to test kids against those higher standards and hopefully achieve what we all want, which is a dramatically greater quality of education in America.” ...
