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Wednesday, May 14, 2014

We Gave the Common Core Elites the Power. It is Time to Take it Away. | Missouri Education Watchdog

We Gave the Common Core Elites the Power. It is Time to Take it Away. | Missouri Education Watchdog:



We Gave the Common Core Elites the Power. It is Time to Take it Away.

power
Your children owe nothing to education reformers, federal agencies, third party researchers or the Chamber of Commerce. Not their data, not their allegiance, not the power to determine if they will be a good worker by kindergarten.  It is time to absolutely and utterly walk away.

We are trying to pass a bill against Common Core (HB1490) in Missouri that has morphed into a bill that doesn’t stop it, but rather slows it down.  Some folks are disappointed the bill is watered down while some folks understand the political reality of how hard it is to pass anything in Jefferson City.  The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a culmination of many years of introducing “school to work” concepts and learning how to mandate educational reforms, rather than passing laws through legislatures.  It has come from years and years of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) running an agency with little legislative oversight.   It has occurred because the Board of Education members and Commissioner of Education are appointed positions, held unaccountable to the voters.  It comes from the Federal Government telling states how they had to deliver education or (horrors!) they would lose money they needed to hire more bureaucrats to keep track of ever increasing Federal mandates the states/schools could never reach (think 100% proficiency).


We are primarily in this place because the rule of law means little to nothing.  Remember Governor Jay Nixon’s words onWe Gave the Common Core Elites the Power. It is Time to Take it Away. | Missouri Education Watchdog: