COMMON CORE, THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL FEDERAL GAMBIT

 

There can be no clearer sign that it is time to kick the federal government back inside the confines of its authority specified in the Constitution than the monstrosity called Common Core. The federal government colluded with the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers and the NEA union to adopt the Common Core standards and curriculum while excluding parents from their meetings. Americans are demanding and getting local control of their schools back as legislators bow to voters furious about the liberal indoctrination of students and lower standards. Nine states have already dropped the Common Core program due to voter pushback with another eight leaning toward the same choice. The federal government claims that it is not requiring adoption of the standards while at the same time using it in part to determine the qualification of districts for federal education grants. There is a legal argument against the Common Core program however most of the pushback centers around parents taking issue with the curriculum and the standards that they feel are lower than current expectations. First we will consider the legal implications.

The enumerated powers of Congress found in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution do not include education as one of the powers given to the federal government. The 10^th amendment then clearly states that, “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The Department of Education itself is an unconstitutional construct of the federal government!

The Congress passed the General Education Provisions Act in 1994, (public law 103-382) which states: No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any education institution, school or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed instructional materials by any educational institution or school system or to require the assignment or transportation of students or teachers in order to overcome racial imbalance. Common Core is a thinly veiled attempt to assert federal control over local education and hinder the growth of private schools, charter schools and home schooling.

One commonly heard myth about school vouchers is that it will hurt public schools by taking away the best students. Studies in the States of Florida, Ohio, Texas, Maine, Vermont and the District of Columbia have shown conclusively that competition from private and charter schools has forced public schools to elevate the performance of their programs. The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has a report online, at edchoice.org, I recommend.

Paul Reville, who is a proponent of Common Core, spoke during a conference at the liberal think tank “Center for American Progress” stating that Common Core critics are a “tiny minority” and that “the children belong to all of us”. He went on to say: “again, the argument about where it (common core) came from privileges certain sort of fringe voices about federalism, and States rights, and things of that nature.” He told this to CNS News.

It has proven easier to dismiss the Constitutional limitations and the voters as a tiny minority of fringe voices in front of liberal audiences, than it has out in public once the details of the program got out. Common Core learning materials are supplied by only two companies. There is no opportunity for local input or control over these materials and the standards are an effort by the same teachers and school administrations that are failing our students today to control alternative educational institutions from raising the bar.

Why would we expect the Union NEA members, who resist any and all attempts to institute merit pay for teachers and use lawsuits to prevent dismissal of poor teachers, to accept charter schools and higher standards without a fight.

I just read a blog post at http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/top-ten-professors-calling-out-common-cores-so-called-college-readiness/ where ten top college educators question the standards of Common Core in Literature and Mathematics. Two in particular caught my eye.

Dr Christopher Tienken of Seaton Hall University wrote: “Education reform in the United States is being driven largely by ideology, rhetoric, and dogma instead of evidence… Where is the evidence of the efficacy of the standards? ... Let us be very frank: The CCSS are no improvement over the current set of state standards. The CCSS are simply another set of lists of performance objectives.” The CCSS stands for Common Core state standards.

Dr. Bill Evers of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University said among other things: “But states weren’t leaping because they couldn’t resist the Core’s academic magnetism. They were leaping because it was the great recession-and the Obama administration was dangling a $4.35 billion Race to the Top carrot in front of them. Big points in that federal program were awarded for adopting the Core, so, with little debate, most did.”

Common Core is not a set of higher academic standards as it was sold to us as being. Common Core is being spread through America’s education system by proponents of centralized government using coercion and lies.