Alisa, Renee and I interviewed Dr. Bill Evers, from Hoover Institute at Stanford University, and Angela Weinziner, the president of the Travis District School Board, also from California. We asked how Common Core is impacting California’s education and the economy.
Highlights:
Dr. Evers tells the story of how an error found in the elementary level English standards about long and short vowels could not be corrected. The standards had already been printed and sent to the states. It was too late to course correct, even on a small matter. How will we course correct on large matters? There is no amendment process.
Angela Weinzinger explains that few parents or school board members really understand what Common Core is all about. She asks parents to speak out and voice their concerns.
Dr. Evers explains what “competitive federalism” is and what its benefits are to education.
COMMON CORE 
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for this interview! I have been slowly consuming information about Common Core over the last 6 months and just yesterday decided it’s time to take a stand and start fighting. I have been having trouble finding others in California who are already engaged in this fight, so I am grateful to hear of some of the specifics on our state and what others are doing. I would love to try and get a website up as a jumping-off point for individual districts so we can all keep tabs on each others progress and direct interested individuals to the right places. If you could forward my information on to Angela Weinzinger it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks again! Laura Constantine, Mom of 4, Elk Grove, California.
Dear Laura, I have family that lives in Elk Grove. Would love to talk to you. Find our group on FB and I will correspond with you: http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/PEACCS/ Maybe we can even meet. You are not alone in this here in CA. There is a growing opposition to it. Please look me up there. I don’t want to give personal info out here. Thanks for watching this!
Just a theory…If your child needs help and you can’t help them because what they are teaching is subject matter that is only understood by math majors, then your only option (because you are sooo stupid) is to push them back to the teacher. The teacher then is given the ultimate position of power. The position of being the problem solver. That is traditionally the position of the parent, the balance of power in your child’s life has just shifted! The all-knowing education system (government) knows best. We, as parents, naively welcome their knowledge because we just want our children to succeed. Thank you for this q&a. I think I just figured it out. It is not about education at all. It is about power!
You are right; it is about power. Parents must wake up and realize that the government is using schools to move toward us all seeing our children as theirs. They use the term “human capital” on students, and build cradle-to-grave tracking systems for schools like a giant, unwanted nanny service. There are many who are aware of this, but more that are not. Many buy the rhetoric because it sounds so good.
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I have listened to most of the discussion, have done my own research, and fully agree that Common Core is NOT what we want for our students. But Dr. Evers needs to be less partisan and stop saying “liberals should be ashamed.” I am a liberal, born and bred in Berkeley, California, and I am not ashamed to say that Common Core goes against all we stand for in public education beginning with the unconstitutional nature in which these standards were thrust upon our states, the coercion that followed to adopt, the lack of legislative, parental, and educator input, and the data collecting that will follow. When you begin to use language that blames one side for the ineptitude that allowed Common Core, you lose a very large piece of the equation to slow down the process of implementation. Please don’t dissuade a group, a member of which I am, to listen to your important lessons on Common Core but rather see that this is an issue in which we have commonalities. Diane Ravitch has come out against Common Core. Why are you not interviewing her as well? Thanks for all your work to bring this issue to the forefront.
Dear Virginia,
Thank you for bringing up the fact that the damages of common core are being felt and recognized by Democrats and Republicans alike. You are correct. Any American tends to cringe when due process is set aside; before any major transformation to education and data collection privacy would be acceptable under our representative system we should have had a public vetting and vote in our states. Thank you for writing.
Christel
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