Wealthy Political Donors Are Sad Some Republican Candidates Are Running Away From Common Core

Some Common Core shills seem unaware that Common Core is about as popular as Ebola these days with a good segment of the population.

Take the editorial boards at the Washington Post and NY Times, both of whom recently wrote up glowing assessments (yeah, I'm using that word on purpose) to talk about the wonders of Common Core and the ancillary tests that go with them and tow warn about the dangers of opposition to the Core (and the tests).

In reading the Washington Post editorial, you'd think it was still 2011 and Common Core opposition was "fringe" instead of increasing by the year.

It's not just clueless newspaper editorial board shills who don't get what's happening with Common Core with the general populace.

The Wall Street Journal today has a piece that says wealthy GOP donors are getting bummed out that Republican presidential candidates are trashing the Common Core.

The Journal reports that wealthy donors are sticking by the Core and pulling support away from candidates like Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker who initially supported the Core but now oppose it.

Candidates who continue to support Common Core are getting love - and dollars - from the Wall Street Common Core-lovers:

Mr. Bush’s approach is drawing a section of donors who have previously backed education accountability efforts in New York and New Jersey. Daniel Loeb, a New York City hedge-fund manager who encouraged Mr. Christie to run for president in 2012, has given $2,700 to Mr. Bush’s campaign, according to the Bush campaign’s financial disclosure. New Jersey education-minded donors that have given to Mr. Bush include Rick Rieder, of BlackRock Capital, Joseph Amato of Neuberger Berman, and Richard Pechter, the past chairman of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, the filing shows.

In July, a fundraiser for Mr. Bush was co-hosted by Mr. Lilley and David Tepper, a billionaire hedge-fund manager who helped cofound the Better Education for Kids organization in New Jersey. Members of the organization that advocates for high education standards have donated to Mr. Christie previously.

Alan Fournier, founder of Pennant Capital Management and co-founder of the New Jersey education organization, gave at least $14,400 to past Christie campaigns, records show. Mr. Fournier gave $50,000 to a super PAC supporting Mr. Bush, disclosure reports show. Mr. Tepper has also given $250,000 to the pro-Bush group, Right to Rise.

Mr. Lilley said his support for Mr. Bush is separate from his official role with Better Education for Kids. A spokesman for Mr. Tepper declined to comment. Mr. Fournier didn’t respond to a request for comment.

So even as opposition to Common Core continues to mount around the country, our "betters" - wealthy Wall Street and hedge fund donors, the newspaper editorial boards that shill for them, and at least two GOP presidential candidates - continue to support it.

As a sidenote, some of those donors backing Bush also back Andrew Cuomo, another lover of Common Core and Common Core testing.

Until the politicians who support the Core are made to pay a political price for that support, we're going to continue to see the political establishment push it.

Christie, Jindal and Walker made political calculations that they would pay a political price for continued support of the Core in a GOP presidential primary race and dropped their support it, with Jindal the strongest in opposition.

There are a whole host of reasons why Christie is losing the backing of donors that have nothing to do with education - he has plummeted in polls (indeed, he may not even qualify for the top ten in the next GOP debate), Bridgegate and other scandals hang around his neck further weighing him down and New Jersey's poor financial health and quality of life have made him a target of barbs from other candidates.

But as the money starts to dry up from CCSS-supporting donors, Christie may start to wonder if he made the wrong calculation in turning rhetorically against the Common Core.

Ironic thing is, since New Jersey still gives the Common Core tests, even though Christie claims he's against the Core, the practical effect is that CCSS will still be taught in schools to ready students for the state tests.

So Christie has the worst of both worlds with the Core - he's really not dropped support for Common Core in effect, since the state tests are still CCSS-tied and schools will have to teach it, but since he's talking trash about CCSS, he's losing some wealthy donors over it.

Jindal was never really a top tier candidate, so I'm not sure his opposition to the Core matters in the GOP money race one way or the other.

Walker, on the other hand, was top tier but has seen his brand and poll numbers drop since Donald Trump entered the race.

He's the guy to watch to see what happens as a result of his "turning" against the Core (I put "turning" in quotes because like Christie, his opposition is more rhetorical than practical in consequence.)

Does Walker pay a political consequence - i.e., have trouble raising money from wealthy donors - because of his turning on the Core?

I'm skeptical that Common Core will be a big reason why Walker has potential money problems, given how the rest of his politics cohabits quite well with the GOP donor base.

If Walker has money problems in the future, it will more likely be due to his poor debate performances and rote campaign stump appearances that give him the reputation of being overly calculated and unable to generate real excitement for his candidacy.

In any case, the Journal piece goes to show that the politics around Common Core remain dicey even for Republicans, where opposition to Common Core is strongest.

The base hates Common Core but the moneyed classes love it and that dichotomy has got even Jeb Bush twisting himself in circles trying to please both.

Chris Christie Approval Rating Hits Bottom - 30% Approval, 55% Disapproval

From Politico:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is still not winning any favor with Garden State voters, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson PublicMind poll released Tuesday.

Christie, who is in the midst of planning a presidential run, has an approval rating of 30 percent, below what is usually expected for a White House hopeful in his own state, where 55 percent disapprove of his performance. His numbers are down from the last FDU poll in April, in which 36 percent of voters approved of the job he was doing, compared to 50 percent who did not.

Christie now has a lower approval rating than another GOP presidential candidate, Bobby Jindal.

Jindal's rating was 32% in a May 2015 poll.

30% approval, 55% disapproval, but he's still running for president.

Excellent.

After a few months of running for president, his New Jersey approval rating should fall into the twenties.

Cuomo's So Unpopular, He Should Run For President As A Republican In 2016

Seems counter intuitive, right?

And yet:

“Just weeks before he is expected to announce his presidential campaign, Bobby Jindal is at the nadir of his political career,” the Washington Post reports.

“The Republican governor is at open war with many of his erstwhile allies in the business community and the legislature. He spent weeks pushing a ‘religious freedom’ bill that failed to pass, while having little contact with legislators trying to solve Louisiana’s worst budget crisis in 25 years.”

“Jindal is now so unpopular in deep-red Louisiana that his approval rating plunged to 32% in a recent poll — compared with 42% for President Obama, who lost the state by 17 percentage points in 2012.”

And:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s popularity has sunk to an all-time low in New Jersey in the wake of indictments linked to the Bridegate scandal, which has put a dent in the Republican governor’s presidential aspirations.

A Monmouth University poll released Monday showed that 56 percent of the state’s registered voters disapprove of the job Mr. Christie is doing and 35 percent approve, marking a drop since February when 47 percent approved of his performance and 46 percent disapproved.

That finding also contrast with the 70 percent approval rating that Mr. Christie held following Hurricane Sandy in 2013.

“Christie’s overwhelmingly positive ratings in the aftermath of Sandy have now been sliced in half,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. “Christie’s ratings had stabilized after the initial Bridgegate revelations early last year. They started to erode again last fall, but these post-indictment numbers mark a significant acceleration in that decline.”

Hell, Cuomo's almost as unpopular as those guys.

He's at 37% approval in the latest Marist poll, 41% in the latest Siena poll and 44% in the latest Quinnipiac poll.

If being unpopular and at an all-time low for approval is a prerequisite for running for president in the GOP primary these days, Andrew Cuomo surely is qualified.

Common Core Considered "Radioactive" And "Toxic" These Days

The AFT leadership may have decided that the Common Core still holds "promise" but much of the rest of America is looking to bury the standards in the same place they put nuclear waste:

The National Governors Association (NGA) owns the copyright – along with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) – to the Common Core State Standards. When the nationalized standards are mentioned these days, however, many governors would rather change the subject.

In fact, the NGA, holding summer meetings in Nashville, had not even placed the controversial standards on its official agenda, a sign, as the Wall Street Journal states, “the bipartisan idea has become a political minefield.”

Much to the surprise of many Washington, D.C., pundits, the standards, and even the name itself, “Common Core,” have “become, in a sense, radioactive,” said Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R), according to the Associated Press.

...

 Indeed, for Republicans, the issue of the Common Core has also been described by former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) as “toxic,” and has served to separate the GOP establishment, supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, from constitutional conservatives who oppose the federal government’s hand in pushing Common Core through President Obama’s Race to the Top (RttT) stimulus program and the promise of relief from federal No Child Left Behind restrictions.

Huckabee used to be a big supporter of CCSS.

Now he's against them.

Bobby Jindal used to be a big supporter of CCSS.

Now he's fighting to pull his state of Louisiana out of using both the standards and the tests associated with them.

Just last January, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin defended the CCSS at a NGA meeting.

Last month, she signed a bill pulling her state out of using the standards, a move that a court backed up today as constitutional.

Even the pro-testing, pro-CCSS Chris Christie is reacting to the changed politics around the Core and the ancillary tests that go with it - he announced a review of the so-called effectiveness of the CCSS tests in his state of New Jersey.

Jeb Bush still loves the standards, as does Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, Randi Weingarten, Michael Mulgrew, Bill Gates and a host of editorial boards around the country.

But when you see all these governors (or former governors like Huckabee) who used to support the standards who are running from them as fast as they can, touting their opposition, that's when you know that the politics around the CCSS battle have really shifted.

Maybe Weingarten and Mulgrew think they've done their part to save the standards after engineering a pro-CCSS resolution at the AFT convention last weekend.

But it's pretty clear from what's happening outside of the Beltway that the trajectory in the CCSS battle is not positive for the CCSS.

That's what happens when a reform becomes "radioactive."

Cuomo Tweaks APPR, Insists New York Remains A "Leader" In Holding Teachers Accountable

Capital Confidential details the program bill Cuomo released today, along with explanatory memo, that tweaks the APPR teacher evaluation system:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s program bill tweaking teachers evaluations related to the Common Core rollout has been released. The legislation would for two years protect teachers or principals rated “ineffective” or “developing” if that score was due to poor performances on the Common Core-related tests for English and math in grades 3-8.

The legislation covers evaluations for the just-ended school year and the one that begins in the fall.

The current evaluation system, set by Cuomo in 2012, derives 20 percent of a teacher’s grade on state test scores and another 20 percent from a circumscribed list of locally set standards.

In short: Any teacher receiving those poor ratings would have a second calculation performed on their score to determine if that below-the-line assessment was due to Common Core tests.

Teachers whose poor scores were the result of non-Common Core tests, however, would still face professional consequences.

“The bill does not include a moratorium or a delay,” the memo states in has warned that New York’s Race to the Top funding could be imperiled by watered-down teacher evaluations.

State of Politics reports:

In an accompanying bill memo, the governor’s office stresses the New York will remain a “leader” nationally in rating the effectiveness of teachers in the classrooms.

NYSUT President Magee claimed on Wednesday that this tweak to APPR is just the first step in a total rewrite of the teacher evaluation laws in New York State:

NYSUT President Karen Magee said Wednesday that negotiators may be closing in a last-minute deal to remove student test scores from the state's teacher-evaluation formula.

"If we remove the scores, there is a hole (in the formula)," Magee told The Journal News. "So we are looking at some sort of recalculation. We are putting the puzzle together, so there are a lot of moving pieces."

Magee said representatives from NYSUT and the governor's office, with input from state legislative leaders, are trying to mold an agreement that would cover this school year and next. Then NYSUT would be committed to seeing a larger rewriting of the evaluation system, known as the Annual Professional Performance Review.

"This is the first step toward an APPR overhaul going forward," Magee said. "We're looking to ensure we get those test scores out of there."

From what was released today, it doesn't sound like Sheriff Andy Cuomo agrees with that statement from Magee.

I'm cynical enough to know that she knows he won't go any further than the tweak we got today.

Quite frankly, I think she's posturing for members, not sending any messages to the governor or the Legislature.

In any case, looks like a minor tweak to APPR for two years is going to happen.

Doesn't seem like much, but given how many states are dropping out of Common Core and the PARCC tests that go with it, who knows what the education landscape is going to look like in two years?

Two former supporters of the Core, Mary Fallin in Oklahoma and Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, both pulled their states out of the Core in recent weeks.

If enough pressure is put on Sheriff Andy over the Core and his APPR evaluation nonsense that mandates so much of the extra testing students are subjected to, he might fold like Fallin and Jindal too.

Bobby Jindal One Of The Least Popular Governors In The Country

Good luck running for president, Bobby:

A new poll released Tuesday suggests Gov. Bobby Jindal is among the least popular governors in the U.S.

Public Policy Polling, of North Carolina, which generally works with Democrats, drew that conclusion after surveying 635 Louisiana voters between Feb. 6 and Feb. 9. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.9 percent for the overall survey.

Fifty-three percent said they disapprove of Jindal’s job performance.

A survey conducted late last year by Baton Rouge pollster Bernie Pinsonat found that 55 percent of 600 likely Louisiana voters questioned between Nov. 6 and Nov. 12, answered “poor” or “not so good” when asked to rate the governor’s job performance.

Jindal's response:

Jindal responded in a prepared statement: “I don’t care about polls. Here are the types of numbers that matter to me — jobs created, graduation rates, student test scores, and number of kids formerly trapped in failing schools who are now getting an equal opportunity for a good education. Those are the numbers that matter to me and to the people of Louisiana.”

Why is Jindal so unpopular?

These may be some reasons:

Public Policy Polling did not delve into the reasons for the governor’s lack of popularity. However, Jindal has drawn negative attention for trying to change public teacher tenure, tinkering with state employees’ retirement and his frequent travels outside Louisiana.

There are few political figures still in power who are as inextricably linked to corporate education reform as Jindal.

It is not a mistake that as the corporate education reform agenda becomes increasingly unpopular, so does Jindal.

There are other reasons why Jindal is under water for re-election, however.

Back in August, Chris Cilliza at The Fix looked at some of those:

Jindal's approval rating appears to be in steady decline. On Monday he dropped his tax reform plan that would have replaced income taxes with higher sales taxes, acknowledging a widespread backlash from the public, religious groups, business and state lawmakers in his own party. "It certainly wasn't the reaction I was hoping for," Jindal said.

That very public failure comes just 16 months ago after Jindal was easily reelected with two-thirds of the vote against minimal Democratic opposition. What happened? The answer is that the policies that have made Jindal an increasingly attractive national candidate have hurt him back home.

Deep budget cuts, particularly to health care and education spending, have been unpopular. Polling suggests that a small majority also opposes the vouchers at the heart of his educational reform plan, which a judge has deemed unconstitutional. While other Republicans gave in, Jindal has held firm in his opposition to a federally-funded Medicaid expansion -- an unpopular position, according to a Southern Media Opinion & Research poll.

So it's more than his education reform policies that have made Jindal so unpopular in Louisiana (so much so that he would barely beat Hillary Clinton in a presidential match-up were the stars to align and Jindal to win the GOP nomination.)

But they surely have contributed too.

And the good news is, Jindal's going to have a difficult time running for president with these underwater numbers in his home state.