Everything You Wanted to Ask About Common Core, and More

Everything You Wanted to Ask About Common Core, and More

American Thinker, July 22, 2013

North Carolina's Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest has written a set of over 200 questions challenging the state superintendent of public schools to explain in detail the adoption and implementation of the Common Core State Standards -- before the State Board of Education's scheduled August 7-8 meeting.

Lt. Gov. Forest's bold approach to finding the underlying cause of the CCSS in his state no doubt will be answered with attacks, as speaking truth to power rarely results in transparency on the latter's part.  By questioning authority, the Lt. Gov. is showing us how to resist the tyranny of the minority.

Dr. June Atkinson, NC Superintendent of Public Instruction, in a June 12 letter defending CCSS, has already begun a counterattack on why "a pause in the implementation of the Common Core" would be detrimental.  She implies that the entire educational structure would fall apart and that such an action would lead "to not teach students how to read, write, speak, listen, and learn math such as adding, multiplying, dividing, subtracting, etc."  To which Forest in #26 returns with "North Carolina did not use the CCSS standards until this past school year. Do you believe that we have not been teaching our students to read, write, speak, listen, and learn math for the past several decades?"

Then, this past Friday, the Department of Public Instruction returned another volley at the Lt. Gov.  On his Facebook Forest writes, "DPI asked that I supply 10,000 pieces of paper so that they could answer my questions."  He sent them the requested reams.  DPI could be pulling all-nighters.

It doesn't appear that anyone checked out the ramifications of the CCSS before the state adopted them in 2010.  The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers released the standards on June 2, 2010, and North Carolina's SBE adopted them two days later.  There was no legislative debate and no real public debate (there was a two-month window for public comments, but who knew?).

In his inquiry, Lt. Gov. Forest broaches the topic of international standards under the section entitled "Development of Standards" when he asks, "Who created the international standards to which the CCSS is benchmarked?"  Maybe he knows the answer already, but he wants to see if the chief of schools knows it.

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