A round-up...

From The New Orleans Times-Picayune, "Common Core bills fail in House Committee, despite Jindal backing":

Louisiana's House Education Committee Wednesday night voted down two bills that could have to scrapped the Common Core education standards and prohibited the use of related standardized tests in local schools. ...

A handful of large employers in Louisiana showed up to tell the Education Committee they support the new academic standards and testing. They have problems finding qualified workers in Louisiana, and are anxious to see Common Core, which they said will produce more skilled workers, stay in place.

"I want you to know that today's workforce is far more demanding than ever before," said Ken Miller, an engineering services manager with ExxonMobil in Baton Rouge, who supports keeping Common Core. "It is really difficult to find people locally for jobs."

The votes followed publication of an editorial in The Advocate of Baton Rouge, "Our Views: Vast silence at the core ":

We agree with the considerable array of educators and experts from business and public policy groups that schools can benefit from higher academic standards.

The politics can make it difficult for lawmakers, but sometimes wisdom is about avoiding the temptation to yield to an agitated crowd in front of you. The job of a legislator is to avoid action on emotional issues when, as in this case, legislative action is likely to do more harm than good.

Last week, radio host Hugh Hewitt conducted an informative interview with former AOL CEO Steve Case, currently chairman of the board of Basis Schools and a supporter of the Common Core. From the transcript: 

HH: A lot of people of the critics of Common Core, and again, I’ve tried to have both sides on this show so that people hear the debate. One of the criticisms is that it’s dumbing down curriculum, that algebra’s been postponed to the ninth grade as opposed to the eighth grade. I’m sure you’ve heard all of these things, Dr. Barrett. How do you respond to that?

CB: Well, I’m sure that most of the people that are now criticizing the Common Core have no idea what their state standards were before. But now they’ve been given some speaking points by some people. The mathematics standards have been aligned to be effectively the best in the world. The U.S. currently ranks near the bottom of the O.E.C.D. countries in mathematics. So if people think we’re dumbing down from where we are, my goodness gracious, we’re at the bottom of the barrel already. The Common Core folks have got the best minds in the United States, they looked internationally to see what the best education systems in the world do and how they do it, and they put some standards in place to achieve that. Now remember, these are standards, what kids should know. The curriculum has been left to the local school districts, to the states, as it should be, as we do in the United States. These are just standards of the expectations of what kids should learn. Exactly how they’re taught and how they learn is still left to the local level.

From The Atlantic, "Confusing Math Homework? Don’t Blame the Common Core":

The fiction that fuzzy math is a function of the Common Core State Standards is being perpetuated by the media, anti-Common Core activists, and the misinformed. Recently, Time, the Huffington Post, and The Hechinger Report all ran pieces about a father’s viral Facebook post blaming the Common Core for his son’s unnecessarily confusing math homework. With headlines like, “Why is This Common Core Math Problem So Hard?, these outlets hastened the spread of the rumor that Common Core is to blame for fuzzy math. While the Hechinger Report article goes on to quote two authors of the Common Core math standards who express the sentiment: “Don’t blame Common Core. Blame a poorly written curriculum,” the misleading title of the article begins with the supposition that the Common Core is to blame for the confusing nature of the teaching. Until media outlets stop conflating issues of Common Core and curriculum, the public will continue to blame Common Core for the harm that flawed, but locally selected, curriculums are doing to math education.