Core Corruption

From the Washington Post February 13, 2013

A year ago, Robert Scott, then the commissioner of education in Texas, shook up the ed world when he said that standardized test-based accountability had led to a “perversion” of what a quality education should be. He’s no longer the Texas commissioner, but Scott is still worth listening to. He just gave a speech to Georgia legislators in which he detailed how he was pressured to sign on to the Common Core Standards before they were written.

Partial Transcript from Scott's testimony--copied from the Washington Post:

"My experience with the Common Core actually started when I was asked to sign on to them before they were written. … I was told I needed to sign a letter agreeing to the Common Core, and I asked if I might read them first, which is, I think, appropriate. I was told they hadn’t been written, but they still wanted my signature on the letter. And I said, ‘That’s absurd; first of all, I don’t have the legal authority to do that because our [Texas] law requires our elected state board of education to adopt curriculum standards with the direct input of Texas teachers, parents and business. So adopting something that was written behind closed doors in another state would not meet my state law.’ … I said, ‘Let me take a wait-and-see approach.‘ If something remarkable was in there that I found that we did not have in ours that I would work with our board … and try to incorporate into our state curriculum …

Then I was told, ‘Oh no no, a state that adopts Common Core must adopt in its totality the Common Core and can only add 15 percent.’ It was then that I realized that this initiative which had been constantly portrayed as state-led and voluntary was really about control. It was about control. Then it got co-opted by the Department of Education later. And it was about control totality from some education reform groups who candidly admit their real goal here is to create a national marketplace for education products and services.

Even more troubling to me was the lack of transparency. … These standards sere written behind closed doors. … We didn’t know who the writers were until the project was complete."