From McClatchy's Washington Bureau, reporting on a panel discussion held Wednesday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "Republicans who designed Common Core say public has been misled":
WASHINGTON — Five Republican former governors who supported the Common Core from its creation during the Bush administration said Wednesday that disinformation from conservatives threatened to highjack the higher standards for what students should be able to accomplish in each grade.
“I’m a believer that facts ultimately prevail among most reasonable people,” said former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, who helped lead the development of the standards and continues to support them. “I think it’s incumbent on us to speak out and defeat rumors and innuendo and allegations with facts about how the Common Core began, what its purpose is and how we believe it can be positive for American society.”
Along with Perdue, other former governors who participated in the panel, sponsored as well by Business Roundtable and the Bipartisan Policy Center, were Jim Douglas of Vermont, Linda Lingle of Hawaii, Business Roundtable's John Engler of Michigan and Jock McKernan of Maine, who is now the president of the U.S.Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
To be sure, the Common Core is not above criticism. The governors acknowledged that people had legitimate suspicions about the federalization of education as a result of President Obama's decision to tie "Race to the Top" federal grants to a state's approval of the standards. "“That allowed people to seize upon that and say, ‘Aha, they’re going to mandate this,' said Engler, stressing that that was never the intent of the governors and state school superintendents who helped develop the standards. Indeed, states had already decided to adopt Common Core by the time Obama became president.
Elsewhere ...
- San Francisco Chronicle, "Common Core is common sense," an op-ed by Jim Steyer, president of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that provides educators and parents with information about media and technology.
- Chicago Tribune editorial, "Defending the Common Core school standards"
UPDATE (2 p.m.): From the Chamber, a good summary of event, "Former Governors Tackle Common Core Foes":
The most recent Program for International Student Assessment shows that even once-struggling nations, such as Estonia, Poland and Vietnam, are surpassing the U.S. “To remain competitive in the global marketplace, American companies need employees who can read, write, use mathematics and make well-reasoned decisions. Ideally, we would educate all of our students to succeed in innovative 21st century jobs that will require greater skills. Unfortunately, at present, we are not.”
It’s also a national security issue, Engler said. According to a report released by Mission Readiness, nearly 75% of Americans aged 17 to 24 do not meet one or more of the basic qualifications to join the nation’s armed forces.
The governors warned that failure to implement Common Core would have a tremendous impact on future generations. “If we fail to implement the Common Core and go back to the drawing board again, there’s going to be another generation that falls further behind internationally,” said Lingle.