Chris Gibson: If NY Sticks With Common Core And Heavy-Handed Education Policy, It's All On Cuomo

Congressman Chris Gibson on the "Every Child Succeeds Act," the education bill that passed the House this week and is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Obama before Christmas:

New York educators and legislators are hopeful the passage of a bipartisan education bill in the House of Representatives this week will convince the state to abandon the more controversial aspects of its own education reform.

The bill, the Every Student Succeeds Act, dismantles George W. Bush's signature No Child Left Behind Act and shifts authority over the nation's public schools from the federal government back to states and local school districts. Not only does it let states to decide whether student test scores are an appropriate way to evaluate teachers or assess schools, but it also prohibits the federal government from mandating or even incentivizing states to adopt learning standards like the Common Core.

 ...

U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, called the bill a major step forward in reducing federal overreach in classrooms and in empowering states and localities. The bill gives New York the flexibility to decide how it wants to test its children and evaluate teachers, he said.

"The ball is now clearly in the governor's court," he said. "We have so many parents and teachers and students that have been upset with Common Core. Well, this bill allows states to withdraw from Common Core without penalty. In addition, the state has taken a heavy-handed approach to schools that are failing, and that has been in part driven by the federal government. That federal overreach is now gone, so anything the governor continues to do in education will be from his own volition. He can no longer lean on the federal government."

I remain skeptical that Cuomo, who's completely on the take from the education reform industrial complex/Heavy Fund Managers For Education Reform, will want to derail the heavy-handed education policy he's helped impose onto the state, including Common Core, the Endless Testing regime, punitive teacher evaluations and a state receivership program that allows the state to take over "failing" public schools and hand them to private entities.

But he certainly wants to make it look like changes are coming.

Thus the Common Core Task Force, thus the trial balloons in the Times about de-linking test scores from APPR, thus the soothing words from him about education policy changes coming.

With his approval numbers in the toilet and his approval numbers on education even worse than that, Cuomo's got to walk a tightrope here, making it look like he's bringing about real change to education policy while assuring his owners, er, campaign donors in the hedge fundie/education reform world that he's still pursuing their agenda.

As Gibson notes, with NCLB III in place, Cuomo's going to have one less scapegoat to blame for the toxic, punitive education reform agenda he wants imposed on the children, teachers and schools of this state.

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.

Common Core Shill Group Trots Out Bill Bennett To Defend Common Core

From the Wall Street Journal:

A group that supports Common Core is launching a two-week television ad buy in Iowa, the state that hosts the first presidential nominating contests, in an effort to counter a backlash from conservative Republicans against the national academic standards.

The new television ad by the Collaborative for Student Success features Bill Bennett,  U.S. education secretary under former President Ronald Reagan. “High standards are worth fighting for,” he says in the spot starting Monday. “That’s why so many conservatives are taking a fresh look at Common Core.”

This strategy - to sell Common Core as "conservative" to the Republican base was introduced earlier this year:

With Common Core set to be one of the political flashpoints in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination and with it a topic at the upcoming CPAC conference (a Thursday panel is entitled "Common Core: Rotten to the Core"), conservative defenders of Common Core briefed reporters on Wednesday to begin pushing back against critics. 

Karen Nussle, executive director of Collaborative for Student Success - and wife of former GOP Rep. and Bush OMB Director Jim Nussle - said the Common Core are K thru 12 standards in math and English developed by the states. They aren't CURRICULUM standards, she maintained. 

Nussle also said that despite all of the opposition to Common Core, only one state out of the 45 that adopted the standards - Oklahoma - has repealed that support. 

And she adds that only another six Republican governors - 2016ers Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal, plus Arizona's Doug Ducey, Maine's Paul LePage, Mississippi's Phil Bryant, and South Carolina's Nikki Haley - oppose Common Core. All other GOP governors support it. And former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is one of its biggest champions. 

Opponents of Common Core, Nussle said, "are pretty much the political outliers."

Core supporters think if they can rinse the words "Barack Obama" from the public perception of Common Core, they can bring conservatives back on board in support of the standards:

Why the opposition to Common Core? "It comes down to two words - Barack Obama. This is what this is about," added Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas Fordham Institute. While the Common Core standards were created by the nation's governors, the Obama administration tied its "Race to the Top" education money to the standards - and hence the association with Obama.

Thus this kind of video from the Collaborative for Student Success that came before the Bennett video (which you can see here):




It's interesting that at least two of the Republicans in that "Cnservatives for the Core" video from 2013 are now opposed to the Core (Huckabee and Jindal.)

It remains to be seen if Core supporters can turn conservatives back onto the Core as the Obama administration sunsets.

Not sure running a video with Bill Bennett hawking the Core is going to do that.

UPDATE: Turns out Huckabee, who used to be for the Core before he turned against it, is kinda for the Core again.

Common Core Headlines Spell Trouble For Common Core

Common Core advocates are trying to save Common Core from an untimely death but recent news headlines suggest they continue to lose that battle:

Panel starts reviewing Common Core standards in NC

Missouri leaders named in Common Core lawsuit: Foes seek to stop payments to test-making consortium

Green Bay Catholic Diocese Backs Away from Common Core

Quarrel over Common Core: A Pennsylvania Primer 

Common Core US History standards attacked in SC

Not enough play for kindergartners under Common Core?

Last week, a TV production company that had done some propaganda work for the NYSED, the Rhode Island Education Department and ENGAGENY, released a You Tube video ad meant to defend Common Core.

The story about the ad from Politico:

WHEN GRANDPA TAKES ON GATES: Common Core proponents have been saying for a while that they’re going to shake up their PR and one novel approach is about to hit social media. It’s a two-minute video that mocks Bill Gates as one of the “rich computer guys in the nerdy glasses” (who frankly is “not making the best computers any more”) and ends with the decidedly modest tagline, “Common Core. It’s Better Than You’ve Heard.” The video follows a gruff senior as he grills his grandson’s seventh-grade teacher. “You’re not going to make him read stuff just because Bill Gates said so, are you?” he asks. Smiling, the teacher reassures him.

— The ad comes from the media firm Six One Seven Studios, based in a Boston suburb. Executive Producer Bryan Roberts said the firm self-funded the video after learning about the Common Core debate through work with clients including the New York and Rhode Island state education departments and EngageNY, a website that provides curriculum resources to New York teachers. “Too many of the pro-Common Core videos were PowerPoints and talking heads,” Roberts said. “So we put out this video to help folks see the power of telling a fun but simple story with real people.” He has more planned. Watch: http://bit.ly/1Bq4mST

This video showing a "simple story with real people" that was meant to defend the Common Core was itself put on the defense when critics pointed out how ham-handed and awful it was:

The video features a Cartoon Old Guy, who's insulting on so many levels. He's dismissive of the kid. He is wrapped up in his own stupid stories. He can't remember the teacher's name (aging brain function-- hilarious). He's ethnic. He's an ignorant war vet of some war-- he looks like a stereotypical WWII vet, but that would make him ninety-ish. Could be Korea, which would make him seventy-ish. He thinks Gates runs Apple (har!) and he measures the value of his grandson's ability to "figure" in how it can calculate money. Oh, and he plays the lottery.

He's worried about the Common Core stuff he's heard about on TV, and I'm wondering where on TV he's hearing bad things about the Core, because Core proponents have that media pretty well locked up.

The message here? Common Core critics are uninformed fools. Note that the nice teacher lady does not actually offer a single piece of fact-based data about the Core to contradict Old Bat-brained Granddad. She doesn't have to (though she might have mention that Hector will have to put a stop to figuring out math problems in his head). He's so obviously a dope that we are meant to simply discount his complaints because, well, he's a dope. He is truly the most wondrous animatronic straw grampaw ever.

I'd like to save the video for posterity's sake, but it was pulled from the Internet and the "Common Core" account that posted the video on You Tube was deleted.

So much for that defense of Common Core.

Earlier in the month, former Secretary of Education William Bennett wrote a pro-Common Core defense in the Wall Street Journal that was widely rebutted by Common Core critics and skeptics for doing exactly what Bennett claimed Common Core critics do in their criticism of Common Core - misleading people:

This morning, former Reagan administration education secretary Bill Bennett took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to make the “conservative” case for the Common Core. In that effort, he actually made a great case for Core opponents, illustrating the contradictions of the Core while furnishing several examples of all-too-frequent Core spin. And he did it, ironically, while implying that Core opponents have “badly and sometimes mischievously muddled” the Core story.

Read the rest of Neil McCluskey's piece, which takes apart every point in Bennett's WSJ column.

Rick Hess also did a good job of refuting the Bennett piece.

Bennett was further put on the defensive when he it was revealed he was paid to "write" the piece:

While in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday, former Reagan Secretary of Education Bill Bennett put out what was described as the “Conservative Case for Common Core,” he admitted he is paid by a lobbying firm for his continued work in support of the controversial standards.

 Bennett’s admission, reported by Politico, that the public relations, lobbying, and business consulting firm DCI Group paid him to write the op-ed perhaps explains why it doesn’t sound much like the writing of the Reagan appointee who agreed with his president that there was no real necessity for a federal Department of Education. 

So we have two "defenses" of Common Core that were themselves put on the defensive this past week and a half and a whole host of headlines that show more trouble's 'a-coming for Common Core.

Given the inept pushback Core advocates, proponents and supporters have engaged in so far, I can't imagine the trajectory for the Core is going to turn around any time soon.

We keep hearing about how the pro-Core side is going to get serious in their defense of the Core, with serious dollars in pro-Core ads and other propaganda.

We keep hearing how the pro-Core side is going to stop talking down to people, stop mocking Core opponents, critics and skeptics.

We keep hearing how the pro-Core side is going to try and connect emotionally with parents and students to win them over to the Core.

But so far what we see are ham-handed attempts by Core proponents to defend the Core like the You Tube ad that's been pulled and the column Bennett got paid to put his name to.

We see continued obfuscation of the issues around the Core, particularly in the "the Core isn't a curriculum" defense, which is false since the testing that comes with the Core and the Obama administration NCLB waivers absolutely prescribes what must be taught in schools.

And we see continued mocking of critics from the pro-Core side, as best embodied in the grandpa in the pulled pro-Core You Tube video.

Good times if you are a Core skeptic, critic or opponent.

Common Core Proponents Mount - Yet Again - A Public Relations Offensive

Politico's Stephanie Simon writes that Common Core Federal Standards proponents are putting together a new P.R. offensive:

Supporters of the Common Core academic standards have spent big this past year to persuade wavering state legislators to stick with the new guidelines for math and language arts instruction. Given the firestorm of opposition that took them by surprise, they consider it a victory that just five states, so far, have taken steps to back out.

...

But in a series of strategy sessions in recent months, top promoters of the standards have concluded they’re losing the broader public debate — and need to devise better PR.

...

So, backed with fresh funding from philanthropic supporters, including a $10.3 million grant awarded in May from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, supporters are gearing up for a major reboot of the Common Core campaign.

“We’ve been fighting emotion with talking points, and it doesn’t work,” said Mike Petrilli, executive vice president of the Fordham Institute, a leading supporter of the standards. “There’s got to be a way to get more emotional with our arguments if we want to win this thing. That means we have a lot more work to do.”

Step one: Get Americans angry about the current state of public education.

To that end, expect to start hearing from frustrated college students who ended up in remedial classes even though they passed all their state tests and earned good grades in high school. “These kids should be as mad as hell” that the system failed them, Petrilli said.

Expect poignant testimonials, too, from business owners who have tried to hire kids from the local high school only to find they can’t do tasks involving basic math, such as separating out two-thirds of a pile of lumber.

Step two: Get voters excited about the prospects of change. Teachers who like the standards are going to be sharing more concrete examples of benefits they see in their classrooms. Groups representing minority students will likely be more vocal, too. The National Council of La Raza, for instance, is promoting a new video featuring a little girl who credits the standards with teaching her the word “whimsical.”

And there will be a whole lot more from the pro-Common Core side on social media, including Pinterest pages full of student work. A coming Twitter blitz will aim to stir up buzz for a new video that tracks a debate between four people who at first seem to want very different things from their schools — but end up discovering they all support the standards. The video, produced by an Arizona coalition, doesn’t once mention the well-worn talking points “academic rigor” or “international benchmarks.”

“The Common Core message so far has been a head message. We’ve done a good job talking about facts and figures. But we need to move 18 inches south and start talking about a heart message,” said Wes Farno, executive director of the Higher State Standards Partnership, a coalition supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.

In short, expect lots of emotional manipulation in the coming wave of corporate-funded pro-CCSS ads and social media blitz.

The ironic thing is, we just heard two months back about how Common Core proponents were sick of losing the message war over Common Core and were devising a corporate-funded pro-CCSS ad campaign to change the trajectory of the war:

ALBANY—Critics of the Common Core in New York have been winning the debate about the controversial education standards, but now they'll face a counterattack backed by a considerable investment.

High Achievement New York, a nonprofit coalition of mostly business groups, plans to launch a roughly $500,000 phone and digital advertising campaign over the next several weeks in an attempt to promote the controversial curriculum standards.

...

While most of the coalition members are business groups, including several chambers of commerce, the membership also includes advocacy groups that have been vocal in supporting the Common Core and other education reforms, including Educators4Excellence and StudentsFirstNY. The latter has been a major supporter of charter schools.

A spokesman for High Achievement New York would not disclose information about the nonprofit's finances. The spokesman said the bulk of the funding will be grants from philanthropic organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Helmsley Charitable Trust. The group has applied for grants and expects to receive them.

 
Guess the localized ad offensive in New York didn't take, eh?

Judging by the latest Siena poll released last week in which 49% of New Yorkers said they want to see Common Core implementation ended, that pro-CCSS ad blitz did not take.
 

So now it's on to a national ad campaign and social media blitz, one aimed at the "heart" and not the "head" (i.e., one meant to manipulate heart strings.)

I dunno, pro-CCSS groups have a lot of corporate backing and thus a lot of money to throw around.

But I think the messaging war has already been lost long ago.

CCSS proponents were arrogant from the start, they imposed the standards with little input or say from the public, they tried to marginalize critics as "kooks" and "tinfoil hatters" rather than admit to any problems with the Core or the ancillary reforms that came with it, and they never responded well to charges that a coterie of wealthy business interests and individuals were the primary backers and proponents of the CCSS reforms.

Now Common Core supporters think they can win back the hearts, if not the minds, of Americans through an ad campaign and social media blitz funded by the very coterie of wealthy business interests critics and opponents have pointed out were behind the CCSS reform agenda in the first place?

Good luck with that.

I'm not saying manipulation and propaganda can't win a message war.

But they have to be deployed early enough, often enough and skillfully enough, and to be honest, Common Core proponents and supporters didn't do any of those things.

War's over, folks.

You could see that clearly in the response to Glenn Beck's anti-CCSS national townhall last week as well as how quickly even blue states like New York have turned against the Core.

Support For Common Core Among Parents Of School Age Children Hits New Low

From Rasmussen:

Support for Common Core among Americans with school-age children has fallen dramatically, as more now question whether the new national education standards will actually improve student performance.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 34% of American Adults with children of elementary or secondary school age now favor requiring all schools nationwide to meet the same Common Core education standards. That’s an 18-point drop from 52% in early November of last year. Forty-seven percent (47%) oppose the imposition of the national standards, compared to 32% in the previous survey. Little changed are the 19% who are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

You see, this is just a messaging problem - one that will surely be solved by ads paid for CCSS-shills like the Chamber of Commerce and Exxon Mobile.

Time To Go After Tenure For CEO's

The noted Communists at Forbes say the higher paid a CEO is, the worse that CEO's company performs:

Across the board, the more CEOs get paid, the worse their companies do over the next three years, according to extensive new research. This is true whether they’re CEOs at the highest end of the pay spectrum or the lowest. “The more CEOs are paid, the worse the firm does over the next three years, as far as stock performance and even accounting performance,” says one of the authors of the study, Michael Cooper of the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business.

The conventional wisdom among executive pay consultants, boards of directors and investors is that CEOs make the best decisions for their companies when they have the most skin in the game. That’s why big chunks of the compensation packages for the highest-paid CEOs come in the form of stock and stock options. Case in point: The world’s top-earning CEO, Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, took in $77 million worth of stock-based compensation last year, according to The New York Times, after refusing his performance bonus and accepting only $1 in salary (he made a stunning total of $96 million in 2012). But does all that stock motivate Ellison to make the best calls for his company?

The empirical evidence before fell on both sides of that question, but those studies used small sample sizes. Now Cooper and two professors, one at Purdue and the other at the University of Cambridge, have studied a large data set of the 1,500 companies with the biggest market caps, supplied by a firm called Execucomp. They also looked at pay and company performance in three-year periods over a relatively long time span, from 1994-2013, and compared what are known as firms’ “abnormal” performance, meaning a company’s revenues and profits as compared with like companies in their fields. They were startled to find that the more CEOs got paid, the worse their companies did.

Another counter-intuitive conclusion: The negative effect was most pronounced in the 150 firms with the highest-paid CEOs. The finding is especially surprising given the widespread notion that it’s worth it to pay a premium to superstar CEOs like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase (who earned $20 million in 2013) or Lloyd Blankfein ($28 million) of Goldman Sachs. (The study doesn’t reveal individual results for them.) Though Cooper concedes that there could be exceptions at specific companies (the study didn’t measure individual firms), the study shows that as a group, the companies run by the CEOS who were paid at the top 10% of the scale, had the worst performance. How much worse? The firms returned 10% less to their shareholders than did their industry peers. The study also clearly shows that at the high end, the more CEOs were paid, the worse their companies did; it looked at the very top, the 5% of CEOs who were the highest paid, and found that their companies did 15% worse, on average, than their peers.

And where is Campbell Brown when you need somebody to take on the problem of "CEO tenure"?

The paper also found that the longer CEOs were at the helm, the more pronounced was their firms’ poor performance. Cooper says this is because those CEOs are able to appoint more allies to their boards, and those board members are likely to go along with the bosses’ bad decisions. “For the high-pay CEOs, with high overconfidence and high tenure, the effects are just crazy,” he says. They return 22% worse in shareholder value over three years as compared to their peers.

Crony capitalism wins again.

Common Core Opponents Not "Drunk With Hysteria"

The attempt to marginalize Common Core opponents and critics continues unabated these days, with newspaper editorial boards like the one at the Daily News accusing people who are against the Core of being "drunk with hysteria."

A New Yorker writes a letter in respone to the Daily News to let them know why they are off base in their attacks:

We, the people, who are against the Common Core are not “drunk with right wing hysteria,” as the Daily News says (“Stand strong on the Core,” editorial, March 12).

We wish it was voluntary, not mandated. We wish educators and parents had been involved with its implementation, not trade organizations and corporations. We wish that states hadn’t been coerced into accepting the standards by the feds dangling Race to the Top funds in exchange for its implementation. We wish the standards had been field-tested first, instead of having our children treated as guinea pigs for Pearson and Microsoft. We wish for transparency.

Do you really believe children struggling in school now will do better with these new standards? If they still live in poverty with minimal parent involvement, nothing will change. In fact, their chances of graduating will go down if the standards are that much more vigorous.

Fix the real problems before changing a whole system that wasn’t broken.

The lack of transparency, the coercion to adopt the Core through a mix of stick and carrot, the deceit of how this was a "state-led initiative" when it really was a plutocrat-funded initiative that paid off the governors to push through these standards, the shoving of all of these untested changes onto the system all at once, the stripping of humanity from the ELA standards and replacing it with rote/follow the directions skills - these are just some of the issues that I have with the CCSS.

These do not derive from hysteria or inebriation, no matter what the functionaries for the plutocracy at the Daily News say in their editorials.

They are real concerns and they are part of the reason why Americans all over this country are beginning to rise up against the Common Core and the education reform agenda as developed by plutocrats like Bill Gates and as imposed via carrot and stick by Washington.

Big Business Takes On Common Core Opponents

Stephanie Simon at Politico reports the business supporters of the CCSS are launching an expensive and widespread counteroffensive against Common Core opponents starting this weekend:

A coalition including the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will launch a national advertising blitz Sunday targeted at Republicans skeptical about the standards. Spots promoting the Common Core will air on Fox News and other conservative outlets.

The campaign — a major ad buy that could last months — aims to undercut dire tea party warnings that the standards amount to a federal power grab, akin to Obamacare. The TV spots and online ads will project a positive tone, featuring teachers praising the Common Core. 

In a parallel effort unfolding mostly in deep red states, thousands of small-business owners and corporate executives have been bombarding state lawmakers with emails, calls and personal visits to press the point that better standards will mean a better workforce and ultimately, a better economy. They’ve been joined in some states by military officers who argue that not just the economy, but national security is at stake.

The strategy: Give conservatives reasons to support the Common Core — and make clear they will reap dividends if they do.

“We’re telling the legislature that this is our No. 1 issue,” said Todd Sanders, CEO of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. “We will be watching.”

And according the Politico article, the business interests behind the Common Core think they are starting to win the battle over the standards:

The business coalitions, working with allies from the education community, have scored some key victories in recent weeks. They blocked a bill that could have torpedoed the Common Core in Georgia. They derailed a similar bill in Arizona, too, though that fight is not yet over. They slowed a breakneck drive to get alternative standards approved in Indiana. And they blocked a bill in Wisconsin that would have empowered the legislature to shape new standards.

“It feels like there’s a bit of a momentum shift,” said Cheryl Oldham, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

This is just whistling past the graveyard propaganda from the CCSS proponents and business interests looking to take back some  of the momentum from CCSS opponents and critics.

The CCSS is under assault all across the country, proponents are trying to keep states from throwing the standards out, one of the first states to implement the standards and align them to high stakes tests (New York) is seeing one of the strongest assaults against the CCSS in the country and according to the Politico article, the poll numbers for CCSS get worse by the year with the public.

I would agree with one of the CCSS proponents in the article who says this is a pivotal moment for the Core - that what happens in the next year or so will determine whether the Core remains a viable education reform or joins education reforms from the past in the junk pile.

But there has been no momentum shift toward the CCSS from the public and in the culture at large, even if proponents have managed to save the Core in the political arena by threatening legislators with loss of donations or primary challenges.

That they're having to threaten legislators to stay the CCSS course even as those very legislators are hearing ir from their constituents over the CCSS and other ancillary reforms shows just how tense the education reform environment is these days.

I don't see opponents and critics of the Core dropping their opposition and criticism just because the Chamber of Commerce or other business interests run some ads - not even on the right, where those ads are aimed.

Instead I see proponents having to continue to fight a losing battle to save their precious Core in state after state as it comes under attack.

 

That proponents of the CCSS are having to wage this expensive and this desperate a counterattack at this point in the CCSS implementation scheme shows you just how bad things are for the Core.

The Fix Is In On The Cuomo Common Core Panel

Not a surprise to find out Common Core-supporting Sheriff Andy Cuomo rigged his Common Core panel with Common Core supporters - but that's what he did according to Leonie Haimson (via Diane Ravitch.)

No early childhood experts, elementary or special ed teachers on commission, which is unfortunate because these are the people whose critiques have been most sharp.

Litow chair already wrote an oped in favor http://bit.ly/1ea69ge

Russo is one of the few Superintendents in entire state on record in favor http://bit.ly/1ea6wHP

He was booed by parents & teachers at a Common Core forum http://bit.ly/1ea6wHP and says CC curriculum “one of best things I’ve seen in education in 31, 32 yrs”

Dan Weisberg head of TNTP has received $23M from Gates Foundation including $7M in last yr alone http://bit.ly/1bDFNH8

Gates has spent >$170M on the Common Core and will not go down lightly http://wapo.st/1bDHggw

It's an act of hubris by our hubristic governor to rig a panel to look into problems with Common Core with a bunch of Common Core proponents and supporters, but in the end, that may backfire on Sheriff Andy and his education reform allies.

Were they truly to create a panel that listened to concerns students, parents and educators have over the Common Core, the testing associated with it, the teacher evaluation system that ensures it gets taught in schools because teachers are evaluated based upon CCSS-based tests and the inBloom data project that will track all the data, they might actually have come up with some decent middle ground solution that could have brought many stakeholders together.

Instead Sheriff Andy rigged the panel for a pre-destined conclusion and has undercut any credibility either he or this panel had on this issue.

CEO's Should Lay Off The Common Core Propaganda And Focus On Their Own Businesses

The latest business genius to weigh in on the Common Core - the CEO of Xerox.

My first thought reading this opinion piece was, Xerox is still in business?

Huh.

Who knew?

I sure didn't.

So I decided to check and see what's going on for them in the news.

It's not good, that's for sure.

Xerox Glitch Halts Food-Stamp Use

SEC Probes Xerox Unit's Accounting Practices

That SEC probe into the Xerox unit accounting practice is the second one in the last decade.

Gee, that seems like a problem. 

I know - maybe less attention to the Common Core, more attention to Xerox's core business and accounting practices.

What a great idea!

These CEO's they trot out to sell the Common Core - sheesh, enough already.

I heard next week another of Rochester's finest, the CEO of Kodak, will explain why Common Core is essential to their photo business...

That'll be great.

And of course there's the granddaddy of all of this, Bill Gates.

How's that Windows 8 thing going, Bill?