Doug Lasken / commentary
October 24, 2012

Doug Lasken

Doug Lasken

Many education activists were loftier-fiving in September when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney finally attacked President Obama's signature educational activity initiative, the Mutual Core State Standards. It was a long time coming, though it hasn't quite come up still.

The Common Core standards are national bookish standards that will replace the often shoddy and substandard standards (if that's not an oxymoron) of the 45 states and District of Columbia that have approved adoption. Every bit someone who consulted for the Fordham and Pioneer Institutes on assessing the states' English Language Arts standards in the run-up to Common Cadre, I tin can attest that many states accept abominable ELA standards in which, often, a functionally illiterate student tin exist certified proficient in reading. Ironically, one of the causes of such shoddy land standards is the federal government'due south last major attempt at reform, the Bush-era No Child Left Behind initiative, which enacted harsh penalties for states whose students do not examination good in reading and math. The bar was set up impossibly high, culminating in the Lake Wobegon-esque requirement thatall children exam expert in reading and math by 2014. It should be no surprise that many states reacted to this unrealistic need past degrading their standards to the betoken that the definition of "proficiency" would be low enough to escape the Section of Education's ideological fervor.

So what's wrong with high standards? Zippo, of course, merely the federal government's ability to implement such a vast, one-size-fits-all program is questionable. For instance, in California we already have world-course, rigorous standards, adult past us a decade agone without federal pressure level. We spent about $2 billion writing and implementing those standards, so the question naturally arises why we should spend hundreds of millions more replacing them. The California Department of Education's toll-benefit analysis (folio 8) of the statewide cost of Mutual Core implementation estimates $600 million for new textbooks, new standards for English learners, and training of teachers and principals. This does not include the price of writing and implementing a replacement for the state standardized test, the CST, which will cost further hundreds of millions. EdSource estimated ii years ago that Mutual Core could cost as much as $i.6 billion to implement in California.

Whatever the cost, there will be no matching federal funds to offset the cost. The state will pay all of it. One might well ask why Gov. Jerry Brown accepts this unfunded mandate and unnecessary expense at the same time that he asks us to vote for Proposition thirty to increment our taxes in back up of the state'south insolvent schools.

Across California's situation, there are a host of concerns with Mutual Core that have been expressed over the last two years past large numbers of right-of-centre Republicans, a constituency that Republican presidential candidate Manus Romney, a centrist past nature, hopes to retain. These range from Ramble questions well-nigh the federal government managing local education, to fears of a federal (or, per some circles, a global) attempt to control the social views of children. It was only a thing of time before Romney's number crunchers noticed the votes to be mined, many in swing states, by going after Common Core.

Strangely, all the same, Romney and his consultants got the facts wrong, as i gathered from the title of the Education Week article that detailed Romney'south September statements in opposition to Common Cadre: "Romney, No (to) Federal Support for Common Core." What federal support? The total amount of money designated to states that adopt Common Core is $360 1000000, and that is reserved for designing assessments, non Common Core implementation. The estimated cost of nationwide adoption and implementation, per the Pioneer Plant, is $10 billion, considered by many a low-ball estimate. U.s. are to pay the whole tab! Simply Romney, quoted by Ed Week, says, "I don't happen to believe that every fourth dimension there's an initiative that comes along, the federal government should finance it." Actually? Then he should be happy with Common Core.

Romney continues: "It's i affair to put information technology out as a model and let people adopt information technology as they volition, but to financially advantage states based upon accepting the federal authorities's idea of a curriculum, I call back, is a mistake."

The misconception continued in the Oct. 15 debate betwixt Obama education adviser Jon Schnur and Romney counselor Phil Handy, when Handy, as quoted in EdSource, again complained that the federal government is financially rewarding states for adopting the standards.

Thus Romney and his consultants have inadvertently agreed with Obama policy, which conspicuously adheres to the principal that the states should not exist financially rewarded for adopting the national standards.

One might argue that Romney's consultants have earned their continue just by putting him on record confronting Common Cadre, but they are throwing abroad the votes of people who are hearing about Common Core for the beginning fourth dimension, which is puzzling. Average voters are not going to feel like mastering the constitutional issues, or ponder hypothetical scenarios of federal control of children's minds. I long agone had to forgo all hope that politicians would express my own problem with Common Cadre: Standards should not be a priority when schools are going broke.

What practice voters care about? We can look to the campaign for the respond: Money, jobs, the recession. Well then, Common Core is tailor-made for an economic statement. Why is President Obama coercing the states into cough upward billions they don't have for standards they either don't demand or don't demand right this second? Simply to make publishers and test writing companies rich?

Seems like a solid entrada line, doesn't it? But you have the air current out of its sails when you become the facts incorrect and insist on the right of states not to receive whatsoever funds for Common Core. That right has already been granted. Gov. Romney should accept a closer look at this upshot. It'south a guaranteed vote getter if he gets the details correct.

Doug Lasken taught 25 years for Los Angeles Unified, fifteen years as an elementary instructor and 10  as a high school English language teacher earlier retiring in 2009. After retirement he taught English language for the UCLA Writing Project at Handong Academy in Southward Korea. Doug currently works part-time as debate coach at New Community Jewish High School in West Hills, California. He served iv years on the Content Review Panel for the California Star Exam, and has consulted for WestEd and the Pioneer and Fordham Institutes. He and his wife have 3 children, all graduates of Los Angeles Unified.

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