It is not unusual to say that Trump lied about something. It happens every day.
But he does try to keep his campaign promises. He has tried and failed to build the Wall, and Mexico won’t pay for it. He has tried and failed to get rid of Obamacare.
But he hasn’t even tried to get rid of Common Core, which he promised to do. Everyone he interviewed for Education Secretary–including Eva Moskowitz and Michelle Rhee–supports Common Core.
Betsy DeVos was a supporter of Common Core before she became Secretary of Education, like her mentor Jeb Bush. She recently nominated at least three strong supporters of Common Core–former Michigan Governor John Engler, former North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue, and test expert Greg Cizek, who helped develop one of the Common Core tests (Smarter Balanced Assessment)–to the governing board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
DeVos has not made any effort to discourage use of the Common Core.
Opponents of the CCSS: you were hoaxed! Trump will not get rid of it, nor will Betsy DeVos.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I suggest a test: someone needs to ask Mr. Trump “What is the Common Core”? I believe the answer will show that he hasn’t the faintest idea of what it is. I expect that he picked up a meme that “Common Core Bad” or “Common Core Big Government” and that’s why he denounced it (to gain votes). After he did that, it probably hasn’t entered his mind once (nor should it) … it should not be a matter to be resolved by the POTUS. It is not mandated by the federal government, just federal funding is linked to its adoption in a small way. Chasing federal funds is a distraction to the effort of establishing consistent and sound financing within each state.
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Your last sentence, Steve, is spot on.
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Steve R: right.
As on every issue, he tosses the words around with zero understanding of what he applauds or denounces.
I wish he would hold a town hall where he would explain anything, not just throw around words like “total disaster.”
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Trump doesn’t understand much of anything. He gets his news from Fox. He doesn’t have press conference because he wouldn’t be smart enough to answer tough questions from intelligent reporters. So, hide and Tweet…the future of ignorant lack of governing.
When he does do something it comes from an Executive Order that destroys something Obama instituted. I believe his only consistent goal is to dismantle everything Obama did. Beyond that, he hasn’t a clue.
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Diane,
You know that the President cannot reach and complete his desire to rid Common Core.
President Obama used federal dollars, through the Race to the Top program, to “coerce” states to adopt new, more rigorous standards. And, in the throes of a downturn, that extra school money was a powerful enticement.
“The writing of education standards is still, and always has been, up to the states,” says Chad Colby, spokesman for Achieve, a national nonprofit that helped develop the Core. “It remains to be seen if the new administration will use the same federal overreach to try and get rid of the Common Core in states the way they accused the Obama administration of coercing states to adopt it.”
“The problem is that the main levers of coercion — the Race to the Top contest and waivers out of the No Child Left Behind Act — are gone,” writes Neal McCluskey of the libertarian Cato Institute. “Race to the Top is over, and No Child has been replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).”
ESSA, as McCluskey points out, is the new federal education law. And in it, lawmakers committed to paper new rules that will make it even harder for the next administration to influence states’ learning standards, like this one:
SEC. 8526A. [20 U.S.C. 7906a] PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL MANDATES, DIRECTION, OR CONTROL.
“[Common Core is] not an issue any president has much say over — academic standards are under the firm control of the state,” Petrilli wrote after Trump’s big win.
Zais, new appointee to Dept of Ed, fought to roll back the role of the federal government in the state’s education affairs by ending its relationship with Common Core, the set of college-ready standards for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, which it adopted in 2010.
In favor of giving South Carolina more power, Zais took the state out of the Obama administration’s grant program, Race to the Top, which rewarded states for education innovation and reform.
Maybe Trump with Zais they will find money to pay the states to develop standards of their own.
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Trump is a moron.
His own Secretary of State said so.
He doesn’t know what Common Core is.
He wouldn’t know a standard if he tripped on it.
He is a moron.
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Think of the positive side ,he hasn’t banned the teaching of evolution either. YET!
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He has not but there is plenty of action in state legislatures to treat science, including evolution, as a matter of presenting “both sides” and marketing that as one aspect of academic and/or religious freedom.
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Common Core has been undermining public schools since its unveiling, so it fits the Trump/Devos/Obama policy of favoring the private sector and disinvesting from public education, which is why there is no urgency at the top to end CCSS. The GOP and the Democrats have been on the same page vis a vis under-financing/over-regulating public education for the past 30 years at least. Trump the vulgar unstable egomaniac lacks the finesse of smooth professorial Obama in undermining the public sector, but both major parties have been moving in the same direction to install a robust, profit-driven private looting of school tax levies.
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you are so right! Both sides of the aisles have been destroying public education for years.
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AMEN! Thanks for writing that “BOTH sides of the ailes have been destroying public education for years.”
TRUE!
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Common Core was intended to make public schools look bad, so bad that parents would demand charters and vouchers. CCSS was never just the standards. It was a full nationalization of education: Standards, tests, teacher training, curriculum, teacher evaluation, College entry tests. And the tests were deliberately made so hard that most kids would fail.
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I don’t understand your statement. Charter schools use common core and the miserable tests. If CCSS were to make public schools look bad so that parents would seek out charter schools, why would parents trade apples for apples? What would be the appeal?
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Jeb Bush in an unguarded moment said the Common Core would prove how dreadful public schools are and create a clamor for choice.
Charter schools are free to choose their own curriculum.
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But Charter schools have NOT chosen their own curriculum. The large chains use CCSS and the tests.
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Voucher schools don’t use Common Core. Not all charters do.
I told you the plan. Reality got messy.
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Diane,
As I mentioned before I find it hard for anyone to jump on Trump for not getting rid of Common Core – as explained below
“Trump has the right instinct but the policy leaves much to be desired. Ending Common Core is a noble goal, but it is primarily a matter of state policy and at this point there is little the federal government can do about. As Neal McCluskey noted yesterday, “the main levers of [federal] coercion—the Race to the Top contest and waivers out of the No Child Left Behind Act—are gone.” The only way for the federal government to get rid of Common Core would be to engage in the same sort of unconstitutional federal coercion that critics of the Core opposed in the first place.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration could ease the path for states to ditch Common Core by merely refraining from using its authority under Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to dictate state policy. As Neal explained:
What [Trump] can do—and I think, along with a GOP Congress, will do—is ensure that regulations to implement the ESSA do not coerce the use of the Core or any other specific standards or tests”
It is States Rights to handle education…
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Trump has done nothing on Common Core. If he knew he could do nothing, why did he promise again and again to get rid of it? DeVos is very close To Jeb Bush, one of the most outspoken supporters of Common Core. The best way to keep it is to do nothing.
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It was just a lie. I guess he thought he could get the vote of those white, suburban soccer moms that Arne Duncan got riled up. C’mon….the man just let CHIP go the wayside. He doesn’t care about kids AT ALL.
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Well, at least he’s tried on most of his promises. Just like Obama tried to get the public option, the Employee Free Choice, end the Iraq war…. Oh, wait, no he didn’t. Sorry, my bad. And apparently anyone who actually expected him to was, to quote Rahm Emanuel, a “f*cking retard”.
I don’t mean to defend Republicans – they’re plenty odious. I’m just saying let’s be careful about throwing stones in glass houses. When it comes to screwing over their “base”, the Democrats are the clear masters.
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True, Dienne. DC is a heady place and trust me, those politicians, lobbyists, and staffers have their own agenda … their positions, campaign contributions and perks.
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Trump seems so detached from certain issues like education, he probably doesn’t remember bashing the Common Core. One of his handlers probably told him to make this point because it would go over well with the states’ rights crowd at one of his rallies.
The issue Trump seems the most “passionate” about is immigration, or the quashing of it. His true passion is making money, and his intention is to make as much as he can, before people realize he his way out of his depth.
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Even the GOP is starting to recognize that a dangerous and ignorant moron has control of the nuclear codes.
This is not funny.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-its-time-to-panic/2017/10/12/5775d558-af76-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?undefined=&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
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Betsy is on the record as saying* “There isn’t really any Common Core any more
And each state is able to set the standards for their state”
Problem solved!!
*On Fox News, so it must be true.
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Meanwhile, Common Core standards are in place in about 40states. But leave them be, Says Betsy.
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Exactly how it seems to work these days: you simply wave the magic wand of illusion around and Trump voters swoon in agreement.
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A friend of mine said recently that she watches all the TV channels. She doesn’t like any except Fox, “..because they are all so negative about Trump”.
Yes, they are negative about Trump and rightly so. He is a moron who has destructive power and is using it.
………
Late Professor William T. Kelley taught Marketing at Wharton School of Business and Finance, University of Pennsylvania, for 31 years, ending with his retirement in 1982. Dr. Kelley, who also had vast experience as a business consultant, was the author of a then-widely used textbook called Marketing Intelligence — The Management of Marketing Information (originally published by P. Staples, London, 1968). Dr. Kelley taught marketing management to both undergraduate and graduate students at Wharton. Dr. Bill was one of my closest friends for 47 years when we lost him at 94 about six years ago. Bill would have been 100 this year.
Donald J. Trump was an undergraduate student at Wharton for the latter two of his college years, having been graduated in 1968. http://www.thedp.com/…
Professor Kelley told me 100 times over three decades that “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” I remember his emphasis and inflection — it went like this — “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.”
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Very useful information. Thanks for the “heads up.” Question is why? What’s going on in the Trump/GOP agenda for education? Clearly DeVos is jettisoning the rhetoric of equal educational opportunity. How does maintenance of Common Core relate to the intensified privatization and destruction of public education as we’ve known it?
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From what I know, the CCSS undermines public education by being a “one size fits all” approach, and it is attached to a series of tests that come with a movable “rigged” cut score. The results from the testing have been used and misused to punish students, teachers, schools in order to ultimately turn schools over to privatization. The Common Core is a vehicle of privatization.
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RT,
Exactly right. That’s what Koretz says in his new book The Testing Charade.
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Common Core is the Uber of privatization.
It forces teachers to use their own vehicles and do all the driving with little to show for it while tech companies play the role of Travis kalanik reaping all the profits.
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The proficiency standards are set artificially high to substantiate the claim that schools are failing and Choice is necessary. Proficiency standards are arbitrary. Reinforces the crisis narrative.
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Face it – he doesn’t have a clue as to what Common Core is and no one could explain it terms he would understand.
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Emanuele,
16 republicans and Hillary said the same thing – that he is clueless – but I think he put that comment and them in their place –
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He is not clueless. He is ignorant. Uncurious. Uninformed about e erything except his own greed.
As Rex Tillerson said, he is a moron.
Or read what George W. Bush’s speechwriter wrote this morning in the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-its-time-to-panic/2017/10/12/5775d558-af76-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html
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I’m not sure why you think CC standards are artifically high. Do you believe students can’t reach those goals? If surburban school have no trouble surpassing proficiency standards, the problem lies elsewhere. Could it be the school adminstration? Could it be a resource problem? Look to fixing inequities. Not lowering the standards. Just saying.
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They are not “artificially high.” They are ridiculously poorly written and conceived.
Let’s look at just one of these so-called “standards,” though one could do the same for the lot of them:
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The Coring of the Six Hundred (with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Row on row, row on row,
Row on row stationed
Sick at their monitors
Sat the six hundred.
“You may now type your Username”
Said the test proctor.
Set up for failure
Sat the six hundred.
“Enter your password key!
“Mercy upon you!
“During the testing
“No one can help you.”
Someone had blundered.
The unspoken truth. But
Theirs was not to make reply,
Theirs was not to reason why,
Theirs was but to do or die,
Theirs was but to try and cry.
Set up for failure
Sat the six hundred.
Text to the right of them
Complex, out of context,
Bubbles in front of them,
Plausible answers,
Tricky and tortured,
Boldly they bubbled and well
Though smack in the mouth of hell
Sat the six hundred.
This is what reading means,
Now that Gates/Pearson
Has reified testing
Far beyond reason.
Pearson not persons.
Plutocrats plundering
Taxpayer dollars
Spent to abuse.
The children are used.
They bubble and squirm
To reveal their stack ranking
And never again
Will know joy in learning
Never again
Humane joy in reading
And writing, no never again,
Not the six hundred.
Text to the right of them
Complex, out of context,
Bubbles in front of them,
Plausible answers,
Tricky and tortured,
Boldly they bubbled and well.
Gritfully slogging through hell
Sat the six hundred.
When shall their innocence,
Innate curiosity,
Joy in their learning
Ever return?
This never shall be.
Theirs is to gritfully
Show the obedience
Proper for proles,
Their preordained role
In the New Feudal Order.
Standardized children
Standardized minds.
Common, not great,
Though sufficient to serve
The ends of the state.
Lost to themselves
And the fruits of their labors.
Honor this children’s crusade.
Honor the price they paid.
Remember when they played.
Our once-young six hundred.
Copyright 2012, Bob Shepherd. This piece may be freely reproduced as long as it is reproduced in its entirety, without alteration, with attribution to its author, and with this copyright notice.
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I like it!
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Thank you, Ponderosa
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In the age of Donald Trump, we are in dire need of court jesters and heyokas. We have late night comedians, though. That’s something at least.
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