States Starting to Rebel Against Common Core

Although education has not been a front burner issue in this election cycle, there is some evidence that word about the dangers of and problems with the Common Core national standards, about which we have warned you for a long time, is slowly getting out.

In addition to Education Liberty Watch, the group of academics, policy makers and individuals that developed and gained over 100 original signatures on a counter-manifesto against the Common Core, The Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, Truth in American Education, teachers, parents, and policy makers are working hard to educate and to protest this loss of autonomy, local control and academic rigor.  Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in interviews on Fox News and the Mike Huckabee show pointed out the constitutional and academic dangers of the Common Core in his new book Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities. In it, he said:

The core of the hard-left’s education agenda – a program shared by Obama, Ayers, and Darling-Hammond alike – has three parts: 1) a politicized curriculum that promotes leftist notions of “social justice,” 2) reducing “disparate outcomes” between students in different districts by undercutting standards, and 3) a redistribution of suburban education funding to less-well-off urban schools. Achieving these goals on a broad scale requires the federal government to usurp local control of K-12 schooling.

Obama is half-way there.

How did he do it?  Instead of submitting his controversial education proposals to Congress and kicking off a vigorous national debate, Obama quietly marked $4.35 billion of federal stimulus spending for his Race to the Top education initiative. Since the stimulus bill was rushed through Congress with barely any debate on economic policy, much less education, Obama never had to go public with his plans.

By coordinating with outside groups not accountable to the voters, like the deep-pocketed Gates Foundation, the White House then orchestrated the creation of a national Common Core of education standards, with an accompanying curriculum and tests.

Supposedly, these standards have been voluntarily adopted by more than 40 states. In fact, by effectively conditioning eligibility for Race to the Top grants on participation in the Common Core, the Obama administration has forced economically pinched states to surrender control of their school curricula to the federal government. Cleverly, states have been pressed to sign on to the Common Core before the actual standards, curricula, and tests are revealed in a second Obama term. The entire scheme is arguably both illegal and unconstitutional. Yet it is moving forward, and the public knows virtually nothing about it.

In addition, state legislators and governors are also starting to respond to this unconstitutional federal takeover of education curriculum. According to the states listed or not listed on this comprehensive review table by Daniel Thatcher of the National Conference of State Legislatures, the breakdown of how states are dealing with the Common Core is as follows:

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Dayton Vetoes Standards Bill

Sadly, but not surprisingly, Governor Dayton vetoed SF 1656, the bill to require legislative approval of new academic standards, on the afternoon of May 4th.  Dayton and education commissioner Casselius seemingly want the executive branch to be able to impose whatever radical standards state or national groups want with a minimum of input from the public or their representatives. Thanks go to the legislators that passed this bill and to  you for your involvement so far.  The next battle will be to make an issue of the social studies standards that have been panned by liberal and conservative groups alike as they go through the administrative rule making process this summer.  After that, citizens will need to consider electing leaders at both the state and federal levels that understand the proper constitutional role of government in education.   Please stay tuned for more details.

House Passes Standards Bill & Strongly Rejects Dayton Unionization Plan

Realizing the very sad state of both the social studies standards that are being totally rewritten instead of revised as per the law, and the English standards after the state’s very unwise decision to adopt the Common Core described in our last alert, the House wisely passed SF 1656.  Sadly, none of the DFL House members participated.  The vote was 71-61. All of the Republicans except Rep. Jim Abeler (R-Anoka) voted yes and all of the Democrats voted no.  Thanks very much for your involvement!!

On the childcare unionization front, since our last alert on that subject, Governor Dayton vetoed HF 1766 authored by Senator Ted Lillie and Rep. Kathy Lohmer, both Republicans from Lake Elmo.  That bill would have prohibited the raiding of childcare subsidies for union dues and fair share fees.  Because the unions are not slowing down in their intensity to unionize private childcare businesses whether they want it or not, and the governor is still contemplating an appeal of Judge Lindman’s April 6th ruling, these business owners are still rightly concerned.

In response both to the governor’s veto and to the judge’s ruling that the Dayton executive order for a unionization election of less than half of the affected child care providers was “an unconstitutional usurpation of the Legislature’s constitutional right to make and or amend laws,” the House Republicans gave the Democrats a chance to go on record regarding the governor’s plan.  Rep. Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington) offered an amendment  to a bill by Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) dealing with state employee layoff policy.  The Garofalo amendment set up a childcare unionization election.  Before this was debated, Rep. Brandon Petersen (R-Andover) offered an amendment to the amendment that would have put the entire Dayton childcare union election executive order into law verbatim.

The debate went on for almost two hours (here starting at approx. 1:15). DFL legislators mostly offered criticism of the process, with members calling it a “mockery,” accusing the Republicans of “playing games” and saying it “made him sick” (1:26 – Rep. Joe Atkins, DFL-Inver Grove Heights).  Leader of the early childhood nanny state forces, the retiring Rep. Nora Slawik (DFL-Maplewood) (1:22) could only argue about the need for a vote and how the amendment was just “messing around.”  She had no substantive arguments whatsoever for why the governor’s executive order was constitutional or why an election that only involved less than half the affected childcare providers even being able to vote was proper. In fact she lauded the fact that other states had gone around their legislatures and unionized childcare workers by executive order.  Neither did Rep. John Persell (1:32:50 DFL-Bemidji), who whined about the cost of running the House during the debate.

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MN Continues Fight Against Federal & Executive Overreach

Karen R. Effrem, MD – President

As the state and federal controversies increase over the unconstitutional and illegal requirements of the No Child Left behind waivers and the equally unconstitutional and illegal implementation of the Common Core Standards via federal funding and requirements, Minnesota legislators continue to step up to the plate.

The House Education Reform Committee passed the companion to the bill that we described in our recent alert, MN Takes Center Stage in Academic Standards Battle this Week. The House bill authored by Rep. Sondra Erickson (R-Princeton), chairwoman of the House Education Reform Committee, simply requires that there be approval by the people’s representatives in the legislature before the state department of education would adopt future Common Core Standards such as happened with the English language arts standards under the Pawlenty administration or the wholesale rewriting that is producing the very revisionist social studies standards being put in place by the Dayton administration. That bill passed the committee essentially on a party line voice vote (audio available here starting at about 27:28 with Dr. Effrem’s testimony at about 1:07 A written version of her similar recent Senate testimony is available here).

The other big development is the introduction of a bill, HF 2905 by Representative Bob Barrett (R-Schafer), and SF 2928 by Senators Sean Nienow (R-Cambridge) and David Hann (R-Eden Prairie), to require the commissioner of education to seek Minnesota’s own waiver to No Child Left Behind based on the state’s needs and laws. This would be in place of the illegal, unconstitutional, conditional and temporary waiver that Minnesota received from the Obama administration, one that among its other problems, in essence requires the Common Core Standards. This bill enjoyed wide bipartisan support during the 2008 legislative session when the Democrats were in control of the legislature and passed the House floor unanimously as an amendment by Rep. Carolyn Laine (DFL- Columbia Heights) to the education finance omnibus bill. Sadly, it was removed from the omnibus bill after a veto threat by then Governor Tim Pawlenty.

These bills are closely related and very important, not only in Minnesota but around the nation to the whole essence of state’s rights, separation of powers, the rule of law, and academic freedom. As Neil McCluskey of the Cato Institute correctly points out, although overshadowed by the health care reform debate at the US Supreme Court, these issues are analogous to and should be viewed as the “other, almost complete, federal takeover.” Continue reading »