Now that the Michigan Senate has voted to “pause” implementation of the Common Core education standards, three things must be said.
1. This is an unequivocal act of stupidity. The Detroit Free Press editorial board best explains why Common Core is a good idea. I'll only add that the anti-Common Core-ites are morons of the first order.
It requires a Crazy Person Decoder Ring to conflate an education standard such as third graders must be able to determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language with, as Common Core opponents seem to fear, every child will be partake in homosexual orgies celebrating the pagan solstice under the supervision of blue helmeted-UN soldiers.
Crazy people have a right to their opinions and to have them heard, but the job of democracy is to hear those ideas and then summarily dismiss those who hold them. Accommodation of “such canaille,” H.L. Mencken warned, will devour our republic.
2. The Common Core fight distracts us from a conversation about how to teach this common-sense curriculum in a way that reaches all students, not just those who already thrive in our highly structured education-industrial complex.
Some of our time’s most successful people left school before completing their programs. We should be asking why formal education can’t seem to accommodate so many of our best and brightest? It’s not just the Steve Jobses and Mark Zuckerbergs, but that cohort of less remarkable people who are successful without a parchment union card more expensive than a decent starter home. More significantly, the current system ignores those otherwise bright minds who quit school and didn’t “make it” in the real world. That sucks for them, but it’s also not great for society in general. We’ve lost their energy and intelligence because the system chewed them up.
We can’t have that discussion because we’re busy placating the paranoid fears of delusional lunatics.
3. The most important lesson from Lansing’s Common Core fail: This “pause” verbiage is unmitigated bullshit. Michigan Speaker of the House Jase Bolger, looking like he pinched his clothes from Elmer Gantry’s wardrobe, told last week's Mackinac Policy Conference that legislators haven’t approved Common Core because, golly, it’s all so complicated. They just need more time to discuss it.
Time to discuss what, exactly? Common Core standards have been around for three years. If 36 months isn’t sufficient time for our legislators to review and pass judgment on a given policy, then they’re probably ill-equipped to hold office.
The framers of our state Constitution created a full-time legislature to provide these people ample opportunity to fully discuss and debate public policy. They’re paid a comfortable salary to ensure their work as lawmakers isn’t distracted by side businesses in welding or proctology. We’ve even built and maintained a fantastic venue for this discourse, complete with ample offices for lawmakers and their staff.
Surely, with such resources and three years to examine the issue, even these fools could come to a definitive decision on Common Core.
Nope. They cannot do that.
Instead, we “pause” implementation of something everyone from Jeb Bush and Rick Snyder to Arne Duncan, Obama’s education secretary, to the NEA think is a good idea because, gall darnit, it’s just too complicated for Lansing’s delicate flowers to figure out.
If the lawmakers we elected had, after careful deliberation, voted to scuttle Common Core completely, then that would be on us for electing a bunch of reactionary know-nothings. Lansing didn’t actually technically scuttle anything. Instead, by voting to “pause,” they prevented Common Core implementation without taking responsibility for the decision. That’s professional nonfeasance. Or, in layman’s terms, cowardice.
We cannot, as voters, accept the “we need more time” excuse from lawmakers on Common Core or anything else—international bridges, transportation policy, tax reform, student loan debt, etc. These people have plenty of time to tinker with legislation. If they can’t properly manage their time to be professionally effective, then we should send them to the unemployment line next November.
