Major Common Core Supporter Now Running From It
Education Secretary Arne Duncan seems to want to turn back the hands of time to take back his staunch defense of Common Core, or at least make people forget about it. In testimony on Tuesday before the House before the House appropriations subcommittee, Duncan distanced himself from the Common Core State Standards that he has avidly defended in the past.
On June 25, 2013, Duncan delivered a speech at the American Society of News Editors Annual Convention in which he, according to a post at Ed.gov, “pushed back on attacks on Common Core Standards.” His speech is posted in its entirety and its focus is on defending what he believes to be the greatness of Common Core and claiming that the federal government had no role in its development. In fact, Duncan was such a strong advocate for Common Core that he said, “I believe the Common Core State Standards may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown versus Board of Education—and the federal government had nothing to do with creating them.”
His speech had topic areas that ranged from the great and positive things he believe Common Core would accomplish to accusing critics of misinforming the people; from praising those he describes as ‘responsible conservative voices’ who supported Common Core to a lecture on ‘the role of journalists’ which Duncan described as ‘telling truth from fiction.’
A little under five months later, Duncan would increase his inflammatory and demeaning rhetoric hurled at Common Core opponents by attacking parents who voiced concerns and complaints about these new standards. In November of last year, the Washington Post reported on the race baiting attack that Duncan used against parents in opposition to Common Core while speaking with a group of state superintendents.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”
Education Week reports on Arne Duncan’s testimony in which he did an about fact and distanced himself from his previous support of Common Core.
In a hearing before a House appropriations subcommittee Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan defended the competitive grants built into his fiscal 2015 budget request, gave no substantive details about a proposed Race to the Top for equity contest, and continued to distance himself from the Common Core State Standards. Rather than sound the rallying cry in support of Common Core, Duncan said, ”I’m just a big proponent of high standards. Whether they’re common or not is secondary.”
The publication also calls Duncan out for his false claim that the federal government had no involvement with the development of Common Core by connecting the dots between Obama’s $4 billion Race to the Top program and the implementation of Common Core in many states throughout America.
But when it comes to competitive grants, the answer is more complicated than “zero.” The administration’s original $4 billion Race to the Top program awarded 40 points to states for developing and adopting common standards. All 12 of those winners have adopted the standards, and have not backed off. What’s more, a separate, $360 million Race to the Top contest to fund common tests was based on the premise that states needed help developing such assessments based on the common standards. But technically, aligning to the common core wasn’t required (you just probably weren’t going to win without it).
Duncan’s testimony, which didn’t contain such nuances, illustrates the fine line the department continues to walk between supporting states as they implement the common core, and not giving critics ammunition to cry “federal overreach.”
As with many within this Obama regime, people must not take what is said, even in sworn testimony, at face value. We have seen too many people in Obama’s regime lie under oath in order to provide cover for wrongdoing and attempt to avoid any repercussions whether criminal or at the voting booth.
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