I’ve been reporting now and then on the growing hostility to Common Core K-12 education standards among (though not uniquely among) conservatives, even as the states frantically race to implement the initiative originally backed and designed by 48 states.
We might have guessed that the first major GOP pol to come right out for killing Common Core would be Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has been frantically searching high and low for right-wing traction to move forward with a 2016 presidential campaign. Here’s the story from the Times-Pic‘s Julia McDonoghue:
Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he wants to withdraw Louisiana from a consortium of states developing the assessment associated with the Common Core academic standards if the Louisiana Legislature doesn’t choose to do so on its own.
Eight state House members sent a letter to Jindal Monday afternoon asking him to nix a years-old agreement that has Louisiana helping craft the Partnership of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test. The governor, who once supported Common Core and the PARCC, said he is in favor of the state’s withdrawal from the group developing the assessment at this point. Jindal also indicated that he hopes the anti-Common Core efforts currently brewing in the Legislature succeed.
It’s not entirely clear that Jindal can really get his state out of Common Core at this late date, but it’s certainly not too late for him to make a big gesture to homeschoolers and other opponents of any real public role in education other than tax subsidies (his legally troubled voucher program already took him far down that particularly twisted road).
Nationally, the big question is whether Bobby’s aggressive flip-flop will start a landslide among 2016ers and/or conservative governors. It sure makes the 2016 calculations of big-time Common Core advocate Jeb Bush tricker than ever.
