This reader comments on earlier posts about why some liberals dislike Common Core, even though they find allies with whom they disagree on other issues. Arne Duncan has tried to create a narrative in which only the Tea Party is opposed to Common Core, but he neglects to mention that leaders of major corporate interests, plus Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee– support the Common Core. Reasons for favoring or opposing it are far more complex than Duncan acknowledges.
I have continuously run into progressive minded people who fear opposing Common Core because the Tea Party opposes Common Core. The fact that the Tea Party opposes Common Core is not a reason for a progressive/left/liberal to shy away from opposing it too. When the first stirrings of Tea Party sentiment occurred, I thought the movement could go left or right because there was something in the original protest that could have easily been embraced by the left – opposition to the Iraq war, opposition to the NSA type of surveillance already underway, opposition to an irrational tax code that favored the wealthy. But the movement was bought off by rightwing money, and rather quickly it ceased having genuine grass roots.
I too have no sympathy for the Tea Party, and I too favor the role of the federal government in regulating markets, providing for the health and safety of the citizenry, ensuring the protection of our common public spaces and enterprises, building national infrastructure, ensuring that our states remain fundamentally “united” by laws and values, and so on. But I also oppose the federal government when it abuses its power, or arrogates more power to itself than is constitutionally proper, or steps into matters that are fundamentally local in nature. Deciding how the country should respond to the Ukraine crisis is a federal matter. Deciding how and what teachers should teach in their local public schools is a local matter. Education policy is for school committees, local district and building administrators, the educators themselves, and the local unions to which they may belong. State government too has a key role to play in ensuring proper and adequate financing, in requiring licensure, and even, to a degree that is properly limited, in holding districts accountable for educational outcomes. But the federal government oversteps its boundaries, both historically and from a policy perspective, when it intervenes to the degree it has in altering the education landscape.
I am no activist for states’ rights, but I do recognize that a constitutional balance does exist between federal and state roles. Marriage, like education, is historically a matter left to state authority, and it should remain there, provided the states act within federal constitutional mandates – such as the equal protection clause. For a federal court to strike down a state law prohibiting gay marriage is not a federal intrusion into state authority. It is our federal constitution at play. The education of our children is uniquely local among our many social institutions, starting with the iconic little red school house. Other than the ridiculous Vergara trial taking place in California right now, there are no real constitutional impairments that occur from local and state control of the institution. The federal government’s interest in having an educated citizenry, and perhaps even its interest in having a citizenry prepared for the challenges of the 21st century, can be accomplished without the massive intrusion that we are seeing now. Indeed, what is saddest about the federal role in education is that the true underlying interests that are represented by our federal DOE and our president (for whom, like you, I voted) are corporate interests, not citizen interests. And so, like the Tea Party with whom I would otherwise never be a bedfellow, I oppose vigorously the role the federal government is playing through overreaching and unwise and politically motivated laws like NCLB and RTTT. There is nothing “core” about the “Common Core,” and even worse there is nothing “common” about it (in the sense that the “common” is something that is shared, public and open). I fundamentally do not trust the federal government in governing education in fifty states and setting goals for education at the district, building or classroom level. I know the analogy is silly, but education right now feels like the Crimea of American public policy.
One of the primary inferences that can be drawn from federal support for Common Core, is that Obama/Duncan – and the interests they work for – want a well-trained citizenry, rather than an well-educated one.
They want a citizenry trained to passively accept the arbitrary use of power, trained to passively accept tedium and absurdity, and trained to accept the constant surveillance and monetization of their work and personal lives.
Sounds like a democracy to me…NOT! The BIG $$$$$ folks do NOT want and educated citizenry. They want citizens who can read and follow directions and fill out a sheet with personal information.
I like what you write here, Michael Fiorillo. It is all too true.
Sometimes I think the Dems invented the Tea Party and the Koch brothers to frighten their base just enough to keep them showing up at the polls while the Dems eviscerate their livelihoods and communities with their neoliberal policies (aka enrich the 1%). It certainly has worked to re-elect our neoliberal in chief Obama, not to mention that Clinton guy from before (and the Clinton gal in the wings now).
To me, they’ve found a very convenient and profitable way to riff off of each other. Politics can be very much like jazz, with each side playing in an unplanned cooperation.
Can’t trust a politician…at least NOT the way the United States does elections. We have an OLIGARCHY, rather than a democracy.
http://www.vice.com/read/shock-news-a-princeton-study-revealed-that-america-is-an-oligarchy
Dear Reader,
I too have shared your observations, and I very much share your thoughts on this matter. As someone who voted Green in the last presidential race, I took the plunge several months ago and became very active in No Common Core Maine, joining a lot of Tea Partiers, mainstream GOP, and Independents. Frankly, I found these folks to be very open, welcoming, sincere, and intelligent. They listened to my points and distinctions, and many came to understand my view that this is as much about corporatism as it is about federalism. In the end, we saw that we all share the same fear of a corporate-federal take over of our most cherished local functions. I’m now a member of the Executive Committee of NCCM and very proud of the work we’re doing. (I recently had an op-ed published in the Portland Press Herald about the impending disaster.)
To be honest, it appears to me that the Democrats and “Progressives” (to explain why I put that in quotes will take too long) have once again been bamboozled by Obama. Instead of focusing on making Obama stay faithful to the traditional Democratic position of public education, they have ignored his and Arne Duncan’s obvious corporatist agenda to deliver the nation’s public educational system to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Where I found my new friends in NCCM open to listening to me after I explained how I quit on the GOP in the ’80s and then left the Democrats to move to the Greens, my Democrat friends (and even many Greens) won’t even give me the time of day on this issue.
So get involved with those who are willing to make a difference. You don’t have to agree on every ting. And by joining forces with “them” you both will learn a lot.
Thanks for this post. It has changed my thinking.
moosesnsquirrels: thank you very much for your contribution.
What you write near the end goes back to something I wrote earlier on this blog: agree where we can, disagree where we must. I find party/political labels are often a misleading, and self-destructive, distraction. And discard the dismissive sneer, jeer and smear of the charterite/privatizer playbook.
If you have found common ground re a “better education for all” with those whom you would otherwise part ways—
More power to you. And good for them.
😎
Last night there were several TV shows that included political “experts” who mentioned the CCSS as an issue that Republicans wanted to brand as “Obamacore” and link to Obamacare as further evidence of “govment overreach.”
The sharpest observations came from commentators who noted that the CCSS were pushed by Republicans, and that Jeb Bush is a staunch defender of these, no doubt because he has not read them or understood what they mean for students and teachers. In any case, these pundits thought he had put himself between a rock and a hard place with the conservative base of the Republican Party, and with consequences that might dampen speculation about his running for president.
The big topper for me was this: The parent/teacher protests are now in the radar of MSNBC commentators. Kudos to all who have been working for that, especially our Relentless Ravitch.. See http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-origins-the-republican-revolt
“…Jeb Bush is a staunch defender of these, no doubt because he has not read them or understood what they mean for students and teachers.”
Or because he has.
Let’s just keep it simple.We are not going to win this battle against the corporate reformers backing Common Core unless we become unified under a valid banner.
It’s simple.. Common Core Standards and high stakes testing have no pedagogical validity because there are no empirical studies that verifies they actual are capable of results the so called reformers claim. In addition, high stakes testing is a form of institutional abuse that must be halted immediately.
Unfortunately, that important message is being destroyed by some who claim they are against the Common Core.
Read David Brooks opinion piece this past week . He calls it a circus. He describes the Right Wing attacks and misrepresents the Left.
There are groups of all political persuasions that are against the Common Core, high stakes testing and education reform. That said, just because another group may be against something that I am also fighting, they are not considered my ally. You really need to explore the agenda of all groups.
I am against the Common Core and high stakes testing due to pedagogical reasons, while groups on the Right are against it for political reasons. Political arguments are self serving, they reflect a much larger agenda. Calling it Obamacore may feel good to some but it does not help our cause.
In this case these Right Wing groups are pushing a much darker agenda. They look at Common Core as a grand conspiracy by the left, meant to indoctrinate our children while creating a mega database of ammunition that will be used against the masses. I can’t be an ally to that rhetoric.
I have called out that agenda by posting links on Twitter that demonstrated that their agenda is so far to the Right that all of us should be wary. These groups are against teachers unions, they are against tenure, they support vouchers, they claim liberal teachers are brainwashing their children, and they claim Common Core is a tool to undermine Christian values just to start.
I have been vocal about these groups before, I have shown links to the Heritage Foundation, Freedomworks, the Koch brothers, and other similar groups. I posted proof that their keynote speakers ally themselves with Glenn Beck and the Cato institute.
I will not ally with any group that is looking for my demise as a public school teacher or as a union member. I won’t risk the war, to save our nation’s important asset, our public schools and teachers, to win any battle.
Don’t kid yourself, these Right wing groups that are fighting education reform, with their not so hidden agendas, will ultimately destroy any chance we have to beat back the reformers. They will undermine the foundation of our cause, And once they erode the very ground that public education stands on, all will be lost.
Case in point…Those of us in New York are doing battle with Democrat Governor Cuomo. The more the Right pushes their agenda, Cuomo digs in deeper ignoring the Democrats in the group appealing to pedagogical senses.
Is this any way to affect change?
It’s time to call these groups out. Expose their true agendas. Then and only then will we really have a chance to save public education.
Keep it simple.. Common Core Standards and high stakes testing have no pedagogical validity because there are no empirical studies that verifies they actual are capable of results the so called reformers claim. In addition, high stakes testing is a form of institutional abuse that must be halted immediately.
. http://rlratto.wordpress.com/
It’s important to understand the distinction and advance the differences that moosesnsquirrels made between the rank and file of the Teaparty and it’s corrupt leadership. By engaging the rank and file, it will be possible, though at times difficult to educate them as to the true nature of “big gummint” & corporatism vs. an actual representative government which is virtually nonexistent these days. For example, just look at the growing revolt against TFA that has grown organically from within based on those outside the organization engaging TFA’s and better explaining to them contradictions and problems they often only vaguely perceive from the inside. In short, their is major difference between a true grass roots base and the machine that purports to represent it that only becomes apparent when all those at the grass roots levels across the political spectrum communicate. The assorted machines and false flag operations cannot be allowed to divide and conquer us all, whether we realize that’s what’s being done or not.
CCSS is just another tool in the privatization of public education and a continued transfer of wealth upward. Most people are going to be put off by education jargon about “pedagogy.” It makes no sense to them, and people who make that argument are going to be on the losing end of this.
Public education “reform” is simply another avenue in the insane pursuit of looting ALL public assets for private gain.
It’s also illegal and unconstitutional because of separation of powers. People can understand that; they don’t care two hoots about “empirical studies.”
It’s like George Washington said about foreign policy: you should have no permanent allies, only permanent interests.
If a libertarian agrees with me on anti-war issues and nothing else, we can work together on that and fight about the other issues another day.
If the Tea Party doesn’t like Common Core even though it’s for entirely different reasons than most of us here, we should be glad.
Just because your enemy in most areas agrees with you in one doesn’t mean you have to change that one.
Otherwise, in World War II, because Hitler wore khakis, our military would have had to change their uniforms to fluorescent pink.
Well said! I share your views.