Well. I''m never 100% sure when it comes to politics, but I think States can and have opted out of Common Core through their State legislatures. I think quite a few. Too busy to Google at the moment.

As this I'm even a little more more sure of: the "stick" against the States used to be you'd lose your precious and significant "Federal Funds" for your schools if your State opted out of Common Core, but I think the new Republican majority is trying to change that. Whether they cam, I don't know. (Maybe if they attach it to a bill giving Putin all of our uranium...)...

Is that more or less than the percent that serve time in jail?

And it's been awhile since I've heard the "argument" but within the past few years someone put out there that "blacks cannot be racist", period. Ah, it's coming back to me now: in order to be racist, you have to have power and be part of the power elite, and since, by definition, blacks have no power, ergo, that can't be racist. So even if you're black and use what some of us more common folk might consider "racial epithets", you're still not a racist. Or, if you're black and repeatedly use the "N" word in a rap "song", and also refer to black women as "ho's"...nope, still not racist.

Logically, then, I guess those poor, powerless white folk in the hoods burning crosses (and churches) down South couldn't be racists either?

Oh, wait, did I use the racist term "logic".? Sorry...

Better yet draw a bullseye.

You did indeed say 'should'. imo, the GOP is so statist that your 'should' could be GOP propaganda ;^)

Bear in mind that this idiot ran the Chicago school system before going to D.C. A system in which less than 2% of male Black students earn a four-year college degree by the age of twenty-five.

I love the comments.

All white males are racists, however, if you are a black progressive, a white extreme progressive, or a primitive tribe member, you cannot be a racist. Asians are suspect and need to be scrupulously inspected. You see, Hitler was right, but, he just had the wrong group to set up as "pure." Any member of a minority (soon to become a majority) or follower of Bill Ayers, Cloward, Piven, and descendants of the Weather Underground is also immune to the racist disease.

Newspeak lives.

+1 for poetic pungency.

Common Core should be abolished. But then, so
should public education.

We have the DOE so that the propaganda will be uniform across the country:-)

The article says, "Duncan maintained the Obama Administration’s position that standardized tests are crucial for both tracking students’ progress and keeping tabs on the achievement gaps between certain groups." Having that information might be useful for some purposes not hard to imagine, but there is no reason it should trump parental judgment or local school policy. This should be an issue around which responsible parents, Objectivists (with or without children), and libertarians of any flavor should draw a line in the sand.

Note my careful use of the term "should". I, too, could be a politician, but take me out back and shoot me, first...

Racism as used by politicians/media/hucksters (wait those have almost become synonyms, or at the least redundant) has become overused to the point of being meaningless.

Locking car doors near anyone who is black is now racism according to the ONE.

Soo....

my wife's Rogue is racist because the doors auto lock.

my FJ cruiser is not racist because the doors do not auto lock.

With door locking as the threshold for racism, nearly any car of recent manufacture is racist.

They conflate ethicity, religion and racism....disliking hispanics, or jews or muslims is now ... you guessed it....racism.

Vocabulary and definitions are apparently subjects that along with civics, are overlooked in the liberal education system.

With a republican in the WH in 2016 the result will be the same pro-statist rubbish we have had for the past 50 years (with Reagan as the possible exception, and there are no Reagan's to run.)

Good try Arne. But it doesn't fly.

It reminds me of that recent cartoon saying the Walking Dead Zombies descended on DC to suck on peoples brains and........starved to death.

Yes, and it makes my day when yet another State drops it. My guess is the original idea came from Bill Ayers, after an approving screening of "The Killing Fields"...

Another poster recently viewed it as part of or at least inspired by "UN Agenda 21"...ah, but that's silly conspiracy thinking (not to mention "racist" to the core [sorry ;-( ])...

I hate to be dishonest, but in this case, it's politics, so, meh...

If we get a Republican into the WH in 2016, high on the agenda IMO should be to abolish the Department of Education, either just before or just after the EPA...but soon...

The dishonest part is: I wouldn't say it during the campaign...OMG, I'd bet you'd hear the word "racism"...

I think it became meaningless to thinking, i.e., rational people awhile ago, and now it's becoming so for even those people who don't think quite so deeply.

I'm sure there have been other formerly "hostile" words that have similarly lost their "automatic" negative connotations in recent times, from overuse or use in ridiculous, clearly inapplicable, situations.

But they escape me at the moment. Anyone else?

As far as "black leaders" denouncing the trend, leave out the qualifier "on the left", and I think some have...

I think the whole idea of Common Core is flawed from the start. People should be allowed to learn at their own speed and what they want to learn when they want to learn it. It should be a decision the the child and to some extent the parent make. Government Indoctrination Centers (public schools) do a terrible job of "teaching" because they are trying to force feed "their view of education" on the students. I, for one, was bored to death in high school and only went because I had to go. Compared with what I have learned on my own, it was a complete waste of time.

These people rub blisters on my soul.

Money-green is a pretty racist good color!

Jan

It takes an astounding amount of arrogance and ignorance to be Secretary of Education...

Yes, of course Arne, we are all a bunch of racists. Now its time to get back into your padded cell and put your straight jacket back on...medication time is over.