There is something about corporate education reform that encourages chutzpah. Chutzpah is a Yiddish word for arrogance. Reformers think they are on the front lines of the civil rights movement. They think that making tests harder helps kids who are already struggling. They think that if the failure rate for black and Hispanic kids goes higher, these kids are getting the help they need. Please don’t ask me to explain the logic behind their train of thought. I suppose their inflated opinion of themselves leads the corporate reformers to reach absurd conclusions.

Take New York State Commissioner John King. His teaching experience is limited to three years in a no-excuses charter school where poor kids were expelled for minor infractions. Having been chosen to lead the Empire State, where only 3% of children are in charters, he has decided that the Common Core standards are his heroic mission. He has compared himself to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And just a few days ago, he said that the advocates for the Common Core were like the all-black World War II unit called the Tuskegee Airmen.

Please don’t ask me to explain the logic. There is none. In the first administration of Common Core testing, 95% of children with disabilities failed. More than 80% of African-American and Hispanic children failed. These tests have passing marks designed to fail most kids, and the burden falls most heavily on minority children. Instead of help and reduced class sizes, they get more tests. What part of this scenario would be supported by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr? What part is similar to the bravery of the Tuskegee Airmen?

It makes no sense. But then, Common Core makes no sense. It was underwritten by one man, Bill Gates. It was imposed by making it a condition of Race to the Top. The tests were federally funded (an act of dubious legality). It eviscerates state and local control of education. It sets poor kids, black kids, Hispanic kids, and those with disabilities on a road to failure. What part of this terrible scenario resonates with the civil rights movement?

The only thing Dr. John King has in common with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is his last name. The current Dr. King should have the decency to refrain from comparing himself to a man who distinguished himself by his humility, his compassion, his decency, his astonishing intellect, and his genuine concern for those who had the least. He sought equity. He fought for unions, good jobs, good housing, fair wages. In my reading of Dr. King’s work, I never once encountered a passage in which he said that what black children need most is testing.