Common Core has become a punching bag for conservatives, but the set of school standards still has its fair share of outspoken supporters, including moderate Republican governors and powerful advocacy groups such as the NAACP.
The standards — adopted voluntarily by states and heavily promoted by the Obama administration — remain especially popular among parents of minority students, even as overall support for Common Core shrinks, polls show.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich has called out fellow Republicans for seemingly turning their backs on the standards after wholeheartedly advocating them years ago. Influential groups such as the National Urban League and the National Council of La Raza also are trying to rally support.
“It’s a way of setting some high standards for Latino students. We believe our kids can reach those standards,” said Peggy McLeod, deputy vice president for education at the National Council of La Raza. “It’s not some weird plot to overturn the government. It’s just really good standards.”
An NBC News “State of Parenting” survey released last month shows that 73 percent of Hispanic parents and 56 percent of black parents view Common Core favorably, compared with 41 percent of white parents.
The poll also found that 61 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of independents back Common Core, compared with 26 percent of Republicans.
Other polls have shown more dismal support for the standards. A Gallup survey released last summer found that 33 percent of Americans, including 34 percent of independents, support the standards for their schools. The numbers underscore the vast disparities in Common Core surveys.
The Common Core math and English standards lay out basic facts and principles with which students must be familiar at the end of each grade level. More than 40 states have adopted the system, though some have either pulled out or slowed implementation of Common Core.
The White House has become a top advocate for the standards and has urged — or, coerced, as critics say — states to adopt Common Core by tying grant funding and other benefits to its implementation.
Supporters say the administration’s actions have driven the backlash.
“The Obama administration never should have gotten itself involved in this,” said Michael Brickman, national policy director at the right-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank that supports Common Core.
Among others on the right, support has dwindled. Republican governors such as Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, once a strong supporter of Common Core, has become an outspoken critic. Even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, formerly a top backer of the standards, recently has expressed doubts.
The issue has crept into the Republican presidential race. Candidates are using Common Core as one aspect of a larger campaign against big government.
“Imagine repealing every word of Common Core,” Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican and presidential candidate, said during his campaign announcement speech last month at Liberty University.
His remarks were part of a rhetorical series of “imagine [favored conservative policy]” lines.
Common Core was not established through federal legislation and therefore cannot be repealed by Congress or the president.
Still, Mr. Cruz’s comments highlight how important Common Core could become among conservative voters. Even former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a likely presidential candidate who for years led the charge for the system, has seemed to soften his stance in recent months and now stresses his support simply for high standards, not Common Core in particular.
Other Republicans are pushing back.
Mr. Kasich has taken issue with his fellow Republicans and argues that some conservatives are unfairly trying to paint Common Core as an Obama policy.
“If I felt that this whole business was somehow connected to [Washington], I wouldn’t be for it,” Mr. Kasich said at the National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit last week.
“The governors themselves wrote the standards,” he said. “We’ve implemented the standards. I didn’t implement them. Obama didn’t implement them. The local school boards have adopted the standards, and now the curriculum is being written by local school boards. I don’t know what is wrong with that.”
Other critics say support for Common Core has eroded in recent years because conservatives have learned more about it and have become more outspoken in their displeasure. They also say parents and students in more liberal states object to high-stakes tests tied to the standards.
In New York, tens of thousands of students reportedly have refused to take tests based on Common Core’s English Language Arts standards. Similar incidents have taken place elsewhere across the country.
“The opposition to Common Core has become much more powerful in the past year or two not because there are a whole lot more people who object to the federal role or who don’t like the content of the Common Core. It’s because there are a lot of people who don’t like the connection to testing,” said Common Core critic Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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