Readers of this blog learned here on February 12 that Chris Christie of New Jersey told Republicans in Iowa that he had “grave concerns” about the Common Core. Today, the Washington Post ran the story, with some juicy additional details.
How did I get the news before the Washington Post? The blog has readers in Iowa who sent the story as soon as it happened. Thanks to all readers for being my eyes and ears across the nation!
Reporter Lyndsey Layton pulled out this fabulous quote from Governor Christie’s recent past:
And Christie’s Feb. 9 comments about the Obama administration were quite different from what he said 18 months ago, when he appeared in Las Vegas at a summit organized by KIPP, a national chain of charter schools. Christie, who supports charter schools, was interviewed at the summit by David Bradley, the owner of the Atlantic Media Company.
This is what Christie said at the August 2013 event:
“We’re doing Common Core in New Jersey and we’re going to continue. And this is one of those areas where I’ve agreed more with the president than not, and with (Education) Secretary (Arne) Duncan. They haven’t been perfect on this but they’ve been better than a lot of folks have been in terms of the reform movement and I think that part of the Republican opposition that you see in some corners of Congress is a reaction, that knee-jerk reaction you see that’s happening in Washington right now, that if the president likes something, the Republicans in Congress don’t and if the Republicans in Congress like something, the president doesn’t. It is this mindset in D.C. right now that says we have to be at war constantly because to not be at war is to show weakness and to show weakness is to lead to failure and I just don’t buy that.”
A spokesman for Christie did not respond to a request on Tuesday for an explanation of the change of position.
An interesting sidelight of the story in the Post:
Though Christie alleges it has been a federal problem, the federal government plays no role in implementing academic standards: It is prohibited by law from getting involved in curriculum decisions or teaching methods.
So, class, how many think that the Obama administration’s Race to the Top “played no role” in promoting the Common Core? How many think that federally-funded tests (PARCC and SBAC) have no bearing on curriculum decisions and teaching methods?
A show of hands?
Meanwhile, back in the Garden State (aka New Jersey), parents and teachers are in open rebellion against the PARCC testing of Common Core. Will Governor Christie speak up?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My hand is up! Christie’s will be up and down as fast as the money hits his palm.
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If Christie was for Common Core before he was against it, does he sit around and berate himself when no one is around?
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Top-down, bottom be screwed….and this man who blows with the wind, and has proven to be a political beast with no ethical centers, aspires to lead this nation at a time of great peril.
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Like Cuomo’s late campaign season “I love kids and kitchen tables”, and “This common core roll-out and all these tests? Just plain wrong for kids and their teachers”. It’s rat-weasel market-testing and politicking.
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What is obvious is that he is nuts and needs a long-term stay in a psych ward where he can do no more harm.
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He’s running for President in New Hampshire. First thing he’d do is change the tax system so companies and people don’t leave the US. He’s been giving tax breaks left and right to his cronies in NJ – the last of which may have been the Revel Hotel which went bankrupt in short order. Would he tax corporations even LESS? Ugh. What a turd.
We know where he stands on common core and PARCC and reform. Kids are as I write this protesting in Cami Anderson’s office in Newark tonight, calling for her resignation. Guarantee you Hespe will sign her up for another year of chaos, complete with huge bonus.
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So, class, how many think that the Obama administration’s Race to the Top “played no role” in promoting the Common Core?
How many think that federally-funded tests (PARCC and SBAC) have no bearing on curriculum decisions and teaching methods?
To both questions, I think that Race to the Top, PARCC and SBAC wouldn’t exist without the Obama administration promoting them and using DOE bribes to gain support.
Of course, Bill Gates was a major player in promoting them too with hundreds of millions of bribes—-called grants—spread across the country.
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But Bill Gates called it “The state-led, Common Core state standards initiative”
And I believe him.
Especially cuz he cracked that smile just after he said it)
Watching Bill Gates is always entertaining because his body language (eg, in the interview with Lindsey Layton) tells you he is lying.
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During a recent presidential election, I read a piece about autistic children in a special ed class in a public school who watched the debates. The teacher said every time the presidential candidates lied, the children would burst out laughing, because of their unique ability through what is considered a learning disability, they were human lie detectors and thought if funny how the two candidates were lying so much.
The teacher ten fact checked all the lies that came out the next day in fact check sites and matched her autistic students’ laughter to the lies and they matched. They laughed a lot more for the GOP candidate but still laughed quite a bit for the Democrat too.
Let’s put Bill Gates in front of these autistic students who find lying so funny; let him talk while they laugh and catch it all on film. I used Google to see if I could find that piece but didn’t.
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Correction. I was wrong. The human lie detectors were not autistic children. They were aphasics and it wasn’t a debate it was a Presidential speech by—none other than the master of lies—Ronald Reagan.
By contrast, aphasics—people who have damage to the left cerebral hemisphere (particularly the left orbitofrontal cortex), cannot comprehend spoken sentences, and therefore must rely on nonverbal cues—are more accurate at detecting deception than healthy observers (Etcoff, Ekman, Magee, & Frank, 2000).
Click to access ten_brinke_stimson__carney_2014.pdf
Once I discovered my error and searched for aphasics, I found the article and it wasn’t a recent presidential election. It was during the Reagan era.
“What was going on? A roar of laughter from the aphasia ward, just as the President’s speech was coming on, and they had all been so eager to hear the President speaking..
“There he was, the old Charmer, the Actor, with his practised rhetoric, his histrionisms, his emotional appeal – and all the patients were convulsed with laughter. Well, not all: some looked bewildered, some looked outraged, one or two looked apprehensive, but most looked amused. The President was, as always, moving – but he was moving them, apparently, mainly to laughter. What could they be thinking? Were they failing to understand him? Or did they, perhaps, understand him all too well? …
“In this, then, lies their power of understanding – understanding, without words, what is authentic or inauthentic. Thus it was the grimaces, the histrionisms, the false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of the voice, which rang false for these wordless but immensely sensitive patients. It was to these (for them) most glaring, even grotesque, incongruities and improprieties that my aphasic patients responded, undeceived and undeceivable by words.
“This is why they laughed at the President’s speech.”
http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1334103
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Lloyd,
I don’t doubt that at all.
It’s well established that their are certain behaviors associated with evasiveness, deception and outright lying.
The primary reason I don’t trust radio interviews (and radio “news’ in general) is that you can’t see the person — either the interviewer or the reporter.
It makes it much easier for them to lie — and they take advantage of it (on NPR, for example)
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But we dare not risk putting someone like Limbaugh on TV, because those aphasics might laugh themselves to death.
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Those of us who live in Iowa take our first in the nation responsibility very seriously. We will be out there meeting every candidate and asking them ALL about their level of support for common core, testing, and public schools.
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Amy,
Hard to figure out you Iowans. Christie actually says things like, if I am to blunt (or brash /whatever) for Iowa, why do YOU PEOPLE keep inviting me back?
Always hear about how well informed the people of Iowa are about candidates, but our. free rider seems to have you all fooled.
Happy vetting!
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I bet he just tells us all to “Shut up and Sit Down!”
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Petrilli is making making this claim : ” federally-funded tests (PARCC and SBAC) have no bearing on curriculum decisions and teaching methods?”
I do my best to leave comments on his articles at F.I. and then I drop in comments in local newspapers wherever I can. My nephew is a parent of 3 kids in public schools in OK so I send him 5 or 6 paragraphs in an email because I know he is a responsible parent and does everything he can to be vocal in the community.
To get back to Petrillli he is patronizing the parents and that really annoys me so I try to point out when he does an out and out like…. Petrilli was also crude when he went to a parent information meeting at his school ( Montgomery County) and he made attacks on the school’s curriculum at the Fordham Institute site (and those things go out through Education Next). I sent an email to Star that I didn’t like what Petrilli was saying about public education.
There are well intentioned parents/voters reading those sites and Petrilli thinks he has them all in his grasp.
Now to get to the current/future: A so called report written by Michael Barber is circulating in Massachusetts about the glorious benefits of the PARRC test… In the Sir Michael Barber non-report they state that another report is coming out from Fordham Institute and HUMMRO that will be grading PARRC test again like Fordham ranked standards in the past. If anyone has any heads up on that future HUMMRO/Fordham report would you please clue me in so I can continue my campaign? I also asked Edushyster about it because she is on top of these so -called reports from the firms with the interlocking directorates . ( on this last one West Ed and another firm in Dover NH were mentioned so I add that to my letter /email writing campaign).
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reference to Sir Michael Barber report (it’s not worth much of your time in reading — it’s a marketing piece) but the report says Fordham I. and HUMRRO are preparing a marvelous new report that will completely justify the investments in the PARRC tests …http://www.mbae.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MBAE-MCAS-PARCC-Report-Web.pdf
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Now there’s a shocker. The same people who promoted the Common Core tests will now justify the expense.
Isn’t Sir Michael Barber on the giant and ever-expanding Pearson payroll? In what world is he is in any way credible?
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yes, Chiara, he is… and so is Mitchell Chester in Massachusetts and the ethics board says that is not a conflict of interest? Superintendents always had in their contract how many days they could be out of state or whatever to do those “reform things” and convince other people; now Chester is full time as a marketing arm for Pearson despite our snow storms he is rigidly insisting on schedules of testing to be met because Pearson needs those 100,000 students (I think Boston is down to 60,000) or the cannot claim they have a “population” to build norms…. If all those “hysterical suburban moms” opt out their kids the PEARSON norms are skewered (the technical word is skewed I think but there is a vernacular that also applies)…. But this interlock directorate of organizations with people on the same boards everywhere (I am including former commissioners in this statement)… Paul Reville was also implicated; former Commissioner David Driscoll uses all of his powerful contacts to push the NAEP governing board to start measuring “grit” because you know feckless parents don’t know how to teach their children anything at home.
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To me, the most disgusting thing about it is how he promoted the Common Core in his state and now that the Common Core is IN his state, he’s running away.
Which leaves public schools political orphans, again, except now they have this huge program to put in and somehow make work. It’s the worst of both worlds for public schools.
No public school should adopt anything these people promote without guarantees and at least a decade of funding locked in ahead of time. They’re a joke. They feel absolutely no duty or responsibility to follow through. They’re not reliable. Local adults have to step in and supervise.
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To quote the great band Queen- “any way the wind blows . . .”
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“And this is one of those areas where I’ve agreed more with the president than not, and with (Education) Secretary (Arne) Duncan. They haven’t been perfect on this but they’ve been better than a lot of folks have been in terms of the reform movement ”
Ah, The Movement. He was speaking to fellow members of the club at a club convention. That explains a lot. The only thing he’s missing is how they’re the “best and brightest”.
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and the hand-clapping revivalist singing for “The Movement”.
Coleman built the Common Core
Hallelujah
Tests and VAMs and much much more
Hallelujah
Bill Gates helped to trim the sales
Hallelujah
Helped with loads of dollar bales
Hallelujah
Standard testing’s deep and wide
Hallelujah
VAMs and firing on the other side
Hallelujah
Arne row your boat ashore
Hallelujah
And cash in at the Pearson store
Hallelujah
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File this with his stance on vaccines.
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jeanhaverhill
February 18, 2015 at 8:36 am
yes, Chiara, he is… and so is Mitchell Chester in Massachusetts and the ethics board says that is not a conflict of interest? Superintendents always had in their contract how many days they could be out of state or whatever to do those “reform things” and convince other people; now Chester is full time as a marketing arm for Pearson ”
Ordinary ethical norms and standards are for the little people, not members of The Movement.
They don’t have to follow the rules on conflicts because they are The Best and The Brightest. They’re not vulnerable to corruption or capture.
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I don’t believe it! It was just a few months ago that he railed against teachers in general when he spoke to a teacher in New Jersey, saying “Why don’t you just do your job?!!!” I think he will say anything now to become a viable candidate for the Presidency. He’s a fraud and a liar, in my estimation.
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