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Common Core Deceive-and-Denigrate Campaign Continues

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Neal McCluskey

I’ve written a lot recently about the untoward tactics being employed by supporters of the Common Core national curriculum standards. I’m afraid little seems to be changing, as illustrated by two new bits of evidence.

The first is a survey in Tennessee by the Core-supporting State Collaborative on Reforming Education. The survey – which has gotten significant coverage across the Volunteer State – supposedly shows that Tennesseans just love the Common Core. As the Knoxville News succinctly put it in its headline, “3 in 4 Tennesseans Favor Common Core Standards.” The article goes on to report that “after hearing a brief description about the standards, about 76 percent of voters support their implementation, with 44 percent ‘strongly’ favoring them.”

Well, that seems like an open-and-shut case for the Common…wait a minute. What was that “description” respondents heard?

Checking out the brief summary SCORE put out about its survey, it appears to be the following (see note 1):

Now, just so everyone taking this survey has the same information, let me tell you some more about these Common Core State Standards. These new standards were developed by states and have been set to internationally competitive levels in English and math. This means that students may be more challenged by the material they study, and the tests they take will measure more advanced concepts and require students to show their work. Knowing this, do you favor or oppose implementing these new Common Core State Standards?

Really? “Just so everyone…has the same information”? Gimme a break.

This is, of course, a classic loaded question designed to get a positive response. How many people are going to oppose “internationally competitive” standards by which children will be “challenged”? Forget that curriculum experts hardly all agree with this assertion. Then, it says that the standards were “developed by states” when, in fact, they were not: the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers are not states. Finally, it completely ignores that the federal government coerced state adoption of the Core – the main concern of the Core’s most vocal opponents – and did so before the final standards had even been published. If you’re going to include highly dubious assertions, and exclude crucial concerns, you might as well just say “the Common Core is terrific, has no down sides, and will be great for your kids. Now, do you favor or oppose terrific standards that will surely help your children?”

Alas, this is not new. It’s a standard, pro-Core question.

In other news, Delaware Governor Jack Markell (D) took to the pages of the Washington Post today to defend the Common Core against a Post report on Tea Party opposition to the Core. Alas, it was a typical defense, based as much on smearing Core opponents, and ignoring crucial federal involvement, as discussing the Core’s merits.

Markell starts with a straw man, citing the Post article as saying that Tea Party people argue that the Common Core was developed by the Feds. No such assertion appears in the article. Markell then suggests that Common Core was controlled by “state leaders” without saying who they were, perhaps because the NGA and CCSSO employees in charge of the effort were not “state leaders.” Moreover, he implies that somehow for standards to be high, and our nation internationally competitive, standards must be national. He offers no meaningful arguments for these things, and ignores the significant empirical evidence against such superficial assumptions.

Perhaps the most egregious – but typical – of his piece’s failings are two. The first is the absence of any mention of Race to the Top or NCLB waivers (not to mention federal funding and selection of national tests) that are the concrete federal actions that utterly justify anyone’s worries about federal control. They are also just the kinds of actions supporters asked for. And the second? Smearing the Tea Party as “fringe” kooks who, it is implied, only peddle myths.

Given what we’re seeing from many Core supporters, that last bit is ironic, isn’t it?

View full post on Cato @ Liberty


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