Campbell Brown has a blistering attack on Republican presidential candidates who used to support the Common Core but now oppose it. She argues that their stated explanations for their changing views make no sense. Some Republicans, for example, say they came to oppose the Common Core because the federal government got too involved with it–even though they were supporting it long after the extent of federal involvement was clear.
She notes that Jeb Bush ”has become a target for standing by Common Core as a voluntary minimum level of rigor for all states. His message to governors: Go ahead and set your own standards if you want; just make them at least as rigorous.” In other words, he wants the states to have high standards, not necessarily the Common Core standards. That seems like a sensible position. But doesn’t it entail giving up on the idea of having “common” standards? Wasn’t much of the point of Common Core that we needed national uniformity? Bill Gates, for example, argued that we needed common standards because multiplication is the same in all states, and because common standards would enable a national market in textbooks. I didn’t find these arguments persuasive, so I don’t mind that Bush is junking them–but I do think it’s worth noting that he’s doing just that.