COMMON CORE WATCH: Former Texas State Ed Commissioner blows whistle on Common Core... is coming from 'education reform groups who admit their real goal here is to create a national marketplace for education products and services.'
Former Texas Commissioner of Educatoin Robert Scott has blown the whistle on how corporate representatives and the U.S. Department of Education under Arne Duncan used strongarm tactics to force states to adopt "Common Core Standards" and bring in even more testings.
Former Texas State Education Commissioner Robert Scott has described how U.S. Department of Education officials tried to force him to endorse "Common Core" when there was not yet a Common Core.Here's the video of Robert Scott's testimony to the Georgia state legislature (scroll down to middle of the page):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/13/former-education-commissioner-blasts-common-core-process/
From Diane Ravitch's blog:
Former Texas State Commissioner Blasts Pressure to Adopt Common Core
February 17, 2013
Robert Scott, who recently stepped down as State Commissioner of Education in Texas, told Georgia legislators that he was pressured to adopt the Common Core standards before they were written.
He said, in the video that appears in the linked article:
“My experience with the Common Core actually started when I was asked to sign on to them before they were written. … I was told I needed to sign a letter agreeing to the Common Core, and I asked if I might read them first, which is, I think, appropriate. I was told they hadn’t been written, but they still wanted my signature on the letter. And I said, ‘That’s absurd; first of all, I
don’t have the legal authority to do that because our [Texas] law requires our elected state board of education to adopt curriculum standards with the direct input of Texas teachers, parents and business. So adopting something that was written behind closed doors in another state would not meet my state law.’ … I said, ‘Let me take a wait-and-see approach.‘ If something remarkable was in there that I found that we did not have in ours that I would work with our board … and try to incorporate into our state curriculum …
“Then I was told, ‘Oh no no, a state that adopts Common Core must adopt in its totality the Common Core and can only add 15 percent.’ It was then that I realized that this initiative which had been constantly portrayed as state- led and voluntary was really about control. It was about control. Then it got co-opted by the Department of Education later. And it was about control totality from some education reform groups who candidly admit their real goal here is to create a national marketplace for education products and services.”
Supporters of the Common Core dispute his claim.
Scott made national headlines when he was State Commissioner because he spoke
candidly against the excessive testing of students in Texas. He said testing
had become “the heart of the vampire” and had perverted the purpose of
education. He didn’t last long in his job after being so brutally frank. Texas
has long been obsessed with testing and accountability, and Scott spoke from
the heart. He also helped to ignite the national anti-testing movement.
By: Rod Estvan
Not all opposition to Common Core is progressive
Texas has never agreed to join the common core, but the root of its opposition comes more from Republican ideology than progressive opposition to a curriculum that contains the ability of teachers to teach literature, and have students experience some of the joy of literary creation by writing fiction themselves. Another source of opposition to the Common core is coming from states like Indiana where the Catholic schools that are receiving vouchers are fearful mandatory state tests based on the Common Core for its publicly financed students will force them to dramatically reduce religious components of their existing curriculum.
While progressive opposition to the Common Core is one thing, the opposition of those who argue in the framework of the tea party and states’ rights is altogether another thing.
Rod Estvan