Education control should stay local

Published 9:05 pm Sunday, September 29, 2013

By Staff Reports

  1. Cruz tells anti-tax group ‘No’ to Common Core in schools
  2. 2016 prospect Jeb Bush defends Common Core school standards
  3. Common Core testing problems may make DoE withhold money
  4. Opt-out movement accelerates amid Common Core testing issues
  5. Teacher outraged by what third-graders are being asked to do on 2016 Common Core test

Common Core is coming apart. That’s good news, even for Texas, which has long rejected the federal educational attainment standards in favor of state-authored standards.

The reason it’s good news is that it could be a sign the powerful pull Washington D.C. has exerted on education is easing up.

“Not long ago I thought the Common Core couldn’t be stopped, or really even slowed down,” writes the Cato Institute’s Neal McCluskey. “Oops. A couple of days ago Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared that he wanted to reexamine state implementation of the Core and withdraw from the PARCC assessment consortium, one of two national groups the federal government funded to create Core-aligned tests. Though hardly a complete withdrawal from the Core, the move is huge. Why? Because arguably the biggest, most influential backer of the Common Core is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and his own state, and a governor of his own party, bucked him. Florida is also, well, a pretty big state.”

Two more governors, Bobby Jindal, of Louisiana, and Scott Walker, of Wisconsin, also are indicating they want to move away from Common Core.

“What happened that caused this suddenly powerful — and at least to me, unexpected — revolt?” McCluskey asks. “It is almost certainly that the Core is now reaching the district and school level, and parents and citizens are becoming fully aware of standards most of their states adopted lightning fast in 2010 to get federal Race to the Top money. They’re becoming aware, and either don’t like what they see in the standards, or don’t like federal imposition. They may also be getting increasingly sick of being told that the federal government wasn’t a driving force behind Core adoption when it absolutely was, and being called ignorant or unhinged for pointing out reality.”



In fact, arguments against Common Core that cite offensive lesson plans, for example, are weak. Lesson plans can be fixed. Common Core, and the federal intrusion it represents, can’t. The usurpation of local control remains the strongest argument against Common Core, Race to the Top and other federal programs.

When parents and politicians argue the lesser points about Common Core, they implicitly signal their agreement that Washington should define excellence, and should decide what our local schools should teach.

That’s why Common Core supporters now don’t even bother to try to gloss over the federalization of education.

Education reformers Chester E. Finn Jr. and Michael J. Petrilli wrote in the Detroit Free Press recently that federal standards are somehow better, even as they acknowledge the federal overreach.

“We understand that many conservatives are justifiably angry about the inappropriate role the Obama administration has played in encouraging the adoption of the Common Core through its Race to the Top program,” they wrote. “But the standards were developed by the states, and implementation is unquestionably a state effort, not a federal one. We see the Common Core as a great conservative triumph.”

It’s not. Local control is a fundamental principle of conservatism, and Common Core is the opposite of local control.