Chamber Of Commerce Common Core Ads Fail To Persuade Republican Base

Pro-Common Core business entities have been putting up money to try and sell the CCSS to the public for a while now, with many aiming to change the way people on the right feel about the standards.

Libby Nelson at Vox reports the efforts to convince people on the right about the wonders of the Core aren't working:

The big political narrative around the Common Core this summer is that the national education standards pit Republicans against Republicans.

Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and the Chamber of Commerce support the standards. The Tea Party decries them as "Obamacore." Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a onetime supporter of the standards, has turned against them; Jindal's top education official, a high-profile education reformer, still supports them.

But the Pew Research Center's recent profile of American political views destroys the assumption that these divides mean the Common Core is contentious among Republican voters. Business-friendly conservatives (the establishment base) and cultural conservatives (the tea party base) who know about the standards oppose them at identical levels. 

Supporters might hope otherwise, but the fight in the Republican Party is over and the standards have lost.

Pew divided the anchors of the Republican party into two groups in its new report on Americans' political beliefs. They call those groups steadfast conservatives and business conservatives, but they could just as easily call them tea party Republicans (religious, culturally conservative, angry at the federal government) and country club Republicans (wealthy, pro-Wall Street suburbanites).

The findings on the two groups' beliefs back up much of the establishment-versus-insurgency narrative. They disagree on immigration, on foreign affairs, on homosexuality, and on whether what's good for Wall Street is good for America.

But they agree on Common Core, identically: 61 percent of both groups oppose the standards.

This is a huge failure for the US Chamber of Commerce. The group spent much of the past year making a case for the standards from a business perspective.

The chamber argued that high, uniform expectations in math and language arts will produce better workers and a stronger economy. They made slick videos. They published op-eds. Yet they failed to convince even their core constituency — business conservatives.

This is why CCSS is doomed to failure and will see repeal in state after state - when business entities spend millions on pro-CCSS propaganda and can't even convince their own business-friendly constituencies that the Core is the most wonderful thing ever, it's difficult to see how the negative trajectory of CCSS support can be turned around.

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.

Liberals And Conservatives Join Together To Fight Common Core

Much of the most recent backlash against Common Core is coming from conservatives, particularly parents who send their kids to Catholic schools or who home school their children.

Many of these parents have begun to learn that their children will be subjected to the Great Common Core experiment too - just like public school children.

Catholic schools that take money from the federal government must have their students take the Common Core-aligned state tests.

Homeschooled children may receive Common Core-aligned instruction because some of the companies that create and sell home school curricula are, you guessed it, aligning to the Common Core.

The reach of the Obamacore is far and wide indeed.

But that may be the seed for its own destruction.

So long as reformers aimed at urban districts, they pretty much could do whatever the hell they wanted in ed policy.

But now that they've taken their reforms to the suburbs, to rural America, to Catholic schools and to home schooled children, they are getting pushback from all angles.

I've been reading some of the conservative blogs and articles lately about Common Core.

I posted yesterday about a Maggie Gallagher piece in National Review on Indiana's halting of Common Core implementation in the state.

There's a lot more bubbling up around the country in states that were expected to meekly go along with the ALEC and Chamber of Commerce-endorsed Common Core.

Liberals and conservatives alike are joining together to fight the Core.

Common Core proponents tend to be an arrogant, delusional bunch (see here), so they may not realize just what a favor they have done for us all by promoting these standards for children everywhere and for aligning the SAT to the Core as well.

If they had kept the Core implementation to public schools, they might have had an easier time with their agenda.

But now that they've awoken Catholic school and home school parents to the dangers of the Federal Core, they are having a much more difficult time sliding these standards into place.

Indiana has halted implementation.

Other states may follow suit.

The Great Common Core experiment is at a crossroads.

And the Common Core proponents have their own arrogance and hubris to thank for that problem.

We'll see if they can overcome this.

They have a lot of money to burn (Gates put $150 million alone into the fight.)

Bloomberg, Broad, Walmart and other corporate proponents are funding it as well.

But now that they've got people on both the left and the right suspicious and/or outright hostile to the Federal Core, it's going to take all that money and more to complete their agenda.

Obama, Chamber of Commerce Smoke Peace Pipe, Agree On Education Reform

More change we can believe in from the change we can believe in guy:

Moving to repair a deep rift with leading CEOs, President Barack Obama plans to speak at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event next month and the two sides are trying to work out details, White House and Chamber officials said Saturday.

The talks mark a dramatic rapprochement between the Chamber, which spent tens of millions of dollars in the midterm election to defeat Democrats, and the president, who openly criticized the “world’s largest business federation” for accepting contributions from undisclosed donors.

White House Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki said: “Economic recovery is the most important goal for the president and working with all of the stakeholders — including the Chamber of Commerce — on export promotion, free and fair trade to grow the economy and create jobs is an important part of achieving that goal."

The overture is the White House’s clearest move to the center since the Nov. 2 elections, when independents sides decisively with Republicans. Democratic officials said the White House is looking for a variety of ways to lower the temperature with CEOs, some of whom have complained about Obama’s agenda and the White House’s treatment of business.

And just what kind of "centrist" peace offering will Obama make toward the Chamber of Commerce?

Well, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are big fans of Waiting for Superman and the kinds of free market-based reforms and union busting championed in that movie and by the education reform movement behind it.

Guess who else is a big fan of Superman?

If you guessed President Obama, you win a post-basketball game cigarette with the leader of the free world.

How much do you want to bet part of the peace process between the two parties involves the corporate-friendly Chamber of Commerce helping the corporate-friendly President Obama to plot market-based education reforms that bring more privatization to the public school system and put teachers unions on the defensive?