And Michelle Malkin is leading a parents' grassroots revolt: "If the Common Core cheerleaders and rebranders in both parties think their bad ideas won’t ever come back to haunt them at the polls, they are in for a very rude awakening."
Michelle is a staunch opponent of Common Core, correctly so I think, but I would differ with her on one small point. I think there is -- or can be -- a consensus of Americans as to a minimum set of skills and factual knowledge (not opinions) a student must demonstrate at each grade level in order to be considered a functioning adult in American society upon graduation.
Common Core went off the rails when it became prescriptive, substituting process for skills and (politically correct) fantasy for fact. That's the point when parents rebelled. Here's Peggy Noonan on the rebellion:
The irony is that Core proponents’ overall objective—to get schools teaching more necessary and important things, and to encourage intellectual coherence in what is taught—is not bad, but good. Why they thought the answer was federal, I mean national, and not local is beyond me. Since patronizing people you disagree with is all the rage, I’ll have a go. The Common Core establishment appears to be largely led by people who are well-educated, well-meaning, accomplished and affluent, and who earnestly desire to help those in less fortunate circumstances, but who simply don’t know enough about normal people—how they live, how they think—to have made a success of it. Also they don’t seem to know that intelligent Americans, exactly the kind who quickly become aware of and respond to new federal schemes—sorry, I meant national ones—have become very, very wary of Washington, and the dreams of its eggheads.Finally, here's all you need to know about why parents are outraged with Common Core. Critical thinking skills, a hallmark of Common Core process, is just another liberal buzz phrase for politically correct thought.
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