Monday, March 17, 2014

Common Core Survives with Bribes

Big business takes on tea party on Common Core

Read more:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/big-business-takes-on-tea-party-over-common-core-104662.html#ixzz2wCkh1X2n

Tea party activists have been waging war for months against the Common Core academic standards. Now, in a coordinated show of muscle, Big Business is fighting back — and notching wins.
The urgent effort stems from a sense among supporters that this is a make-or-break moment for the Common Core, which is under siege all over the country.

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.”
The tea party might be loud, but the chamber spends tens of thousands on local campaigns each election year. Sanders wants lawmakers to remember that. “They are going to have to make a choice in terms of which constituency is going to be the most important to them,” he said. He said the chamber will have no qualms about dispensing its political funds to reward standards supporters, or punish dissenters. “My board is absolutely unanimous about this,” Sanders said.

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.

Still, she and others are careful not to project overconfidence.
Within days, Indiana will very likely become the first state to officially scrap the standards, though it is far from clear that they will be replaced with anything too radically different. Bills to undermine the Common Core are pending in at least a half-dozen other states as well. Major conservative organizations such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have jumped in to help guide and grow the grass-roots opposition. And teacher unions, though they still back the standards in concept, are warning that their implementation has been badly botched.

“It’s a critical time,” said Dane Linn, vice president of the Business Roundtable and one of the architects of the Common Core. “State leaders, and the general public, need to understand why employers care about the Common Core.”

The Business Roundtable, he said, is urging members to work their connections with “governors, committee chairs, House speakers, presidents of Senates” to stop any bills that could undercut the standards.
Tea party activists are not intimidated.

On the contrary, they’re convinced the business community’s tactics will backfire by stoking populist outrage against the Common Core and its raft of powerful, establishment supporters. “Frankly, they can rant and rave as much as they want. They’re not going to affect me, and I don’t think they’re going to affect any others,” Arizona state Sen. Al Melvin said. “I’m a businessman. But sometimes, these chambers of commerce get it wrong.”
The Common Core State Standards, meant to guide K-12 instruction in math and language arts, were written by nonprofit education advocacy groups with input from state associations and funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Obama administration gave states substantial incentives to adopt the standards in 2010. Most quickly did, often with little public debate.

Read more:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/big-business-takes-on-tea-party-over-common-core-104662.html#ixzz2wCi4MBZL


Comments
Common Core accelerates the “dumbing down” of the public school student, but also threatens private schools. Threats and bribes are Obama’s favorite political weapons. And why not ?  He uses money from the Fed, freshly printed out of thin air.  The Chamber of Communists has been dumbed down as well.  Remember, they supported the Georgia T-SPLOST of July 2012.  But, this isn’t over. As Georgia caves in to a $30 billion bribe, voters are sharpening their “primary sticks”.  A brief examination of Common Core will tell you that this is every bit as bad as the T-SPLOST project list.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party

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