The Tampa Bay Times reports that popular Florida Senator Marco Rubio has taken a firm stand in opposition to the Common Core.
“Common Core started out as a well-intentioned effort to develop more rigorous curriculum standards,” Rubio said in a statement to the Tampa Bay Times. “However, it is increasingly being used by the Obama Administration to turn the Department of Education into what is effectively a national school board. This effort to coerce states into adhering to national curriculum standards is not the best way to help our children attain the best education. Empowering parents, local communities and the individual states is the best approach.”
“I have long supported and continue to support strong standards and accountability for public schools,” Rubio said, charging that Obama has used Common Core for no good.
Rubio said that standards should be drawn at the state level.
Rubio hasn’t mentioned Jeb Bush and his “Foundation for Excellence in Education,” a Gates-funded, pro-common core foundation. But his stand against Common Core further highlights the break in the Republican party that has been caused by Common Core. Most Floridians realize that the stand Rubio has taken against Common Core is a stand against Jeb Bush’s foundation. Bush, former Florida Governor and brother/son to the former Presidents Bush, had been a respected voice in the Republican party.
While some Republicans side with Jeb Bush, and others side with Marco Rubio on the Common Core issue, at the same time, in the Democratic party, there are people lining up on the pro and on the con side of the Common Core argument. Even progressive education reformer Michelle Rhee is quoted in the Tampa Bay Times article as saying:
“Some way right-wing tea party people don’t like federal mandates, then you’ve got left wing teacher union folks who don’t like accountability for their teachers.”
It is, after all, a freedom issue even more than it is an academic one. Both sides of the aisle can see it.
COMMON CORE 