Common Core: Another Federal Intrusion in Our Lives

(Lisa Krasner) – Opposition to Common Core State Standards in education is growing.

Common Core represents the ideas of several national organizations telling us what and how children should learn in our public schools. It is designed to advance in primary and secondary education the general progressive agenda of centralization and uniformity. Excessive testing and longitudinal data collection in violation of 4th Amendment privacy rights, are just a couple of the issues that concern parents.

What begins with mere national standards, breeds pressure to standardize educational content and conformity in instructional materials. All of this will take a toll on parental empowerment in their child’s education.

The Republican National Committee calls it “an inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children.”

Those in favor of Common Core say it is merely a state-led, voluntary initiative to guide education with national standards. A closer look might reveal just another Obama administration indifference to the Constitution.

The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Since education is not mentioned in the Constitution, it is one of those powers reserved to the states and the people.

The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the original federal intrusion into education, said, “Nothing in this act shall authorize any federal official to mandate, direct, or control schools’ curriculums.”

The 1970 General Education Provisions Act states, “No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any federal agency or official to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction or selection of instructional materials by any school system.”

The 1979 law creating the Education Department forbids it from exercising any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum or program of instruction of any school system. The ESEA as amended reads, “No Education Department funds may be used . . . to endorse, approve, or sanction any curriculum designed to be used in grades K-12.”

Those in favor of Common Core refuse to listen to opponents’ arguments, preferring to dismiss them as “silly”.

However, those local communities and caring parents against Common Core and the federal government’s involvement in their children’s education demonstrate that a distinct portion of the public is not going to bend on an issue that is so important to their children and grandchildren.

Federal intrusion into a state and local matter, such a public school education, causes parents to further distrust their government. It’s time for government officials to sit down and have a serious conversation with concerned parents.

(Mrs. Krasner is a Republican Candidate for Nevada Assembly District 26 in Washoe County.)