Common Core & the Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance (Update: Foundation for Excellence in Education)

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush this week joined The Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss why higher academic standards are critical for the future of our nation. Below are some key excerpts from this interview. To read the full transcript, please visit here. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The Hugh Hewitt Show: Jeb Bush on the Common Core “Jeb Bush on the Common Core” THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW July 30, 2013 Hugh Hewitt: I have been spending a lot of yesterday and today talking with people about the Common Core and as I explained yesterday with Bill Bennett and Jay Mathews and others today, all of a sudden, a couple of months ago people started approaching me at forums and asking my opinion about this and voicing criticism and some support, as Bill Bennett explained yesterday, what’s your connection to it, what’s the origin of Common Core, Governor Bush? JB: Common Core state standards were standards that were developed by Governors and state school officers, those folks that are either Commissioners of Education or Secretaries of Education in 2006-2007.  Forty-five states agreed to those standards. The intent was to create standards so that when a young person reached 12th grade and graduated from 12th grade they would be college and/or career ready, because right now about a 1/3 of our kids are college or career ready, even if they get a diploma.  So, the idea was to benchmark these standards to the best in the world, make fewer of them, require critical thinking skills, make them higher standards and make it voluntary. And, from that effort; amazingly, really, if you think about it, 45 states have signed up. HH: And so, was the genius of the idea yours? Where did it come from? JB: No…the genius came, I think, really came from the National Governors Association, business, military [communities], a lot of people are concerned about higher standards, and I am as well.  I think our standards are way too low. If you think about it, if we spend more per student than any country in the world other than Luxembourg apparently, and a third of our kids, even though a lot them get a piece of paper that say they’ve graduated, but they take remedial courses in college or they don’t have the skills to get a job.  That’s a failed system. There’s a huge cap so raising the standards I’ve always been for them. HH: Where does it impose curriculum? JB: The curriculum is why people get all riled up and legitimately so. They are told that this will be a national curriculum. In fact, standards are different than curriculum, and that is where I think the biggest misnomer is and where people legitimately get concerned.  I would be concerned if we had a national curriculum influenced by the federal government. My Gosh, I’d break out in a rash. … JB: You know, these are standards that are common, that have been embraced from the bottom up, not from the top down. And, the curriculum will be created just as it always has been. And by the way, the curriculum we have today for those that are concerned about Common Core State Standards, and I’m glad they are interested in the subject because the curriculum we have today is, in many places,…is horrendous. And so it’s totally how you teach to those standards, and it is still something that should be driven by state and local school districts and by policy makers at the state level. … HH: Okay. Now, let me run through some of off stated criticisms I’ve found in the really couple of weeks that I’ve been looking at this.  Number one, very facial but our friends on the left like to say that your friend, and some would say your protégé, Senator Marco Rubio, is opposed to the Common Core, Jeb Bush is favoring the Common Core, that must mean great controversy. What’s the story there? JB: I’ve not talked to Marco about it. I read a letter that was partially published in the St Pete Times, and in that he expressed concern about national curriculum. I have the exact same concern. I also have concern about the federal government coercing states to embrace this. Florida has embraced it , and as a Florida Senator he should be happy with the fact that this has been vetted by the Legislature. The Governor of the state supports it and it’s a state driven initiative, along with the other states. So, I don’t think there are big differences. I’ve not talked to him about it, but a lot of people, as I said including President Obama for some odd reason, who should know better in his State of the Union address, brought the fact that this was a national curriculum. It isn’t. … HH: Michelle Malkin and others, I think, I think it’s Michelle, worry about federal data mining, part of this giant accumulation of data on kids and parents and families. What’s your reaction to that criticism, Governor Bush? JB: I can see why people get riled up if opinion leaders like Michelle Malkin or, I don’t know if she said that, but other people like that, have made that case. The data that exists will continue to be where it exists right now in each state.  The State of Florida has a state data bank. Every state has one. Ours is pretty advanced and we have used it to be able to help teachers develop strategies to make sure that struggling readers learn how to read and kids understand, or don’t understand math concepts, get the remedial help they need. So, there’s not going to be any change in that. There’s no federal data base in the sky somewhere that we’re these people are going to be mining information that jeopardizes the American families. HH: Alright, let me get to the core objection. Okay. Let me get to the core objection, the one that I think has the most meat to it. Yesterday, I had on Bill Bennett and Bill said, hey, trust but verify, probably could be a kind thing, it’s not the solution. Then Jay Mathews and I don’t know if you’re familiar with Jay’s work at the Washington Post, but he’s a very fine education writer and he does a lot of good work and following reform, says look there are more important things out there that, that especially in the area of teacher training and recruitment we have to emphasize. So, the concern becomes does the debate over Common Core drain away energy from Ed reform? Does it block pre-empt or in any way supplant other educational reform that is at least as important as is Common Core standards? JB: That’s a very interesting question…but the simple fact is, for example, I’m huge supporter of school choice, both public and private. There’s nothing in this that jeopardizes school choice programs in the country or jeopardizes, frankly, the advocacy which I’d love to see a lot of this energy be placed and further reformed. High expectations, high standards is only one step towards a significantly better system that is less monopolized, less politicized, less unionized, more focused, more student centered. You have to start with the basic facts which are that we’re dumbing down our expectations for young people and there is complacency because of that. Everybody thinks their children are doing fine, and we’re getting our lunch eaten by global competitors that make education a higher, higher priority. So, yes, maybe it takes away some interest but all the critics of Common Core states, they—I’ve not seen them show up in the education reform fight…[they should] maybe focus energy in a positive way to bring about those changes state by state. HH: Let’s talk about ed reform generally for a second.  By the way, I’m on the Great Hearts Arizona Public Charter Board so I know about public charter schools. I know what you did on public charters and you’re a big proponent of public charters. Bobby Jindal was on the program last week. I asked him about Detroit given his experience in help New Orleans rebuild. He said the most important thing was that they were able to post-Katrina start from scratch and rebuild a charter based public school system. Is that, is that what has to happen…?” JB: I completely agree with that. I think this is a great opportunity for Detroit just as post-Katrina it was in Louisiana. The Bush Administration liberated the schools and Bobby Jindal, to his credit, and the Louisiana Legislature embraced that opportunity, and fully embraced it, and today kids in New Orleans have a far better chance of being successful in life because of it. Detroit has a similar kind of circumstance; declining student population, heavily unionized, all the focuses on the economic interests of the people inside the system. This is a great opportunity, and they also have the model that was passed in the Michigan Legislature to Governor Snyder’s credit…So, this is a great opportunity. You are absolutely right. … HH: Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, I know the new website is highercorestandards.org.Thanks for spending time with me and helping me unravel this. I appreciate it very much. JB: I appreciate your interest in it. To view online, please visit http://highercorestandards.org/governor-jeb-bush-talks-higher-standards-on-the-hugh-hewitt-show/. For more information on the Foundation for Excellence in Education, please visit www.excelined.org.

Foundation for Excellence in Education CEO Patricia Levesque recently joined The Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss why higher academic standards are critical for accelerating student achievement and keeping America competitive. Below are some key excerpts from this interview. To read the full transcript, please visit here. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The Hugh Hewitt Show: Talking “Common Core” with Patricia Levesque “Talking ‘Common Core’ with Patricia Levesque” THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW August 1, 2013 Hugh Hewitt:  Welcome back, America. It’s Hugh Hewitt. Thank you for listening today. Joined now by the CEO of the Foundation for Excellence in Education Patricia Levesque. Ms. Levesque, welcome. It’s great to have you on the Hugh Hewitt Show. Patricia Levesque: Thank you, Hugh, for having me. HH: I have been spending a great deal time this week diving into the Common Core with a whole bunch of different voices those who are enthusiasts, those who are opponents and I am at the end of the week or getting close to the end of the week, confused over where its headed. What do you think is the situation right now concerning the Common Core controversy? PL: Well, I think states the 40 something states that are…participating in Common Core are moving ahead with implementation which means teachers are being trained in how to teach certain standards more deeply, like spending more time on getting fractions right and so that process of implementation in getting ready to go back to school is what’s going on right now. HH: Now, yesterday, Michael McShane of AIE was on. He’d been testifying in Michigan about a pause up there. I got a note last night on an email from an Indiana legislator who said that Indiana is taking a pause. What, in your opinion, is driving the reticence in places like Michigan and Indiana and various districts and certainly in tea party grassroots among some teachers unions? PL: Sure. Well, I think one of the things that is going on in the states is not really a pause on the standards but states are taking a look at what type of assessments and what process they are going to use to assess the standards. Not really that many states are going through a pause on actual implementation of the standards, and certainly school districts are moving ahead even in Indiana if the state legislature is not. … HH: All right. Patricia, I’m so glad you came on today. I’m up in Sacramento for an event tonight and I walk into my studio which is AM 13 The Answer and one of the Senior Exec’s handed me a piece of paper from his spouse who’s been listening all week and it says the following: Common Core is coming to your child’s school in 2014 and you’re not going to like it and here are some of the bold points: Common Core is the latest national federal one-size fits all educational program for all K-12 school children; When did you vote for this new mandatory school regime?; A federal takeover of all the schools and hardly anyone knew?; Algebra has been pushed from the 8th to the 9th grade; California costs is estimated at 1.6 billion. That’s just a few lines of what was handed to me. What are you are guys doing to respond to critiques or concerns? PL: Sure. I think if you talk to most parents what’s still most parents have not heard about is Common Core and so a responsibility that we have and others who do support the higher standards is to make sure parents and teachers really do know what’s coming. And what is coming is a set of state-adopted, because states individually adopted through their constitutional or legislative or executive branch process, these academic standards and they have been adopted in most states for a couple of years. Parents need to understand how fantastic these standards are going to be for their children, because for the first time we actually started by looking at college and career readiness. … Twenty-five percent of the students right now in our country who earn a high school diploma,only 25% are ready for college course work. Every year families and taxpayers spend $3 billion dollars on remediation. Basically, we re-teaching high school level course work to college students and these standards are not going to solve every row in the public education system, but they put us—it’s one tool in the tool box that will get our students better prepared so that we’re not remediating, spending 3 billion dollars on remediation on kids who actually achieved a high school diploma. … HH: I’m talking with Patricia Levesque who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, big proponent of the Common Core. So, Ms. Levesque, again, if we go back I don’t think anyone would disagree that American public education in many places in the country is in deep, deep, deep, trouble and that something has to happen, but the Common Core has elicited a great deal of opposition based upon the fear that the federal government is taking over…How are you responding to parents who get this information, this opposition and say, hey, the feds are taking over? PL: Well, you know, the fear of federal government takeover is a justified fear, and let’s face it, in light recent events in Washington and things that the federal government has completely been wrong in their actions, from my opinion, it’s good and it’s important for parents to have a very healthy skepticism of federal government takeover. …The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and as parents we don’t want the federal government to tell teachers what textbooks to use and how to teach. Those are good and honest and justified fears. [However] they happen to be completely incorrect when it comes to these state adopted standards. … HH: So, in terms of well, stick with me after the break if you will because I wanted to ask, not only about where parents go to find good information, is there a website you recommend that they go to? PL: We would recommend highercorestandards.org which is a place where parents can find out accurate information, where they can see why conservatives really do support these higher standards and we’re happy to answer their questions directly from that website as well. HH: Highercorestandards.org and when we come break, we’re going to talk about data mining with Patricia Levesque who is the CEO of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a true, true, conservative reformer who served six years in the Florida Legislature in the Speaker’s Office as the Staff Director for Education Policy. She knows of which she speaks. … HH: Patricia Lesvesque, one of the arguments that I’ve discovered this week is that many conservative activists are afraid that the Department of Education is going to be using the Common Core enrollment process to data mine local district information on students. What do you say to that? PL: Well, I say parents need…to be diligent in the future to make sure that that doesn’t happen. The federal government should not be taking students private personal information and using it for any reason as far as I’m concerned, but Common Core, the data still stays at the state level. It’s the states that run accountability systems now. It’s the states that will be responsible for controlling and reflect—protecting that data in the future. HH: But has it happened? I know over at Higher Core Standards, for example, it says fighting federal overreach.  There’s a whole line there and debunking against the whole line, but is the federal government trying to get a hold of that data? PL: No, not through Common Core. I mean, Common Core is a set of standards. I think there are other research pieces of things—this particular notion of data mining came from a research report that was done completely not associated with Common Core by some researchers in the U.S. Department of Education with consensual, you know, approval from parents to study certain aspects about student learning. And so, but unfortunately, that, you know, those urban myths kind of get spread and that’s what happened in this case. HH: Yeah. I got sent that report many times last night. Page 41, I think, it has all the references to data mining the local district data and I was a little bit stunned that these researchers put into that thing. What does, for example, higher core say to parents about that? That they should go to go their school board and say not now, not ever, never? PL: What they should be very active locally. They should pay attention to what their school boards are doing and parents should want to have reports on who has access to my child’s data and those are healthy skepticisms and we have to remain vigilant over it. You know, the thing that I would want every parent to understand and know about Common Core standards is that the standards are going to better prepare your child in the future to be college and career ready. They are hopefully going to save you money because you won’t be paying remediation costs out of your pocket when your child goes to higher ed and really wasn’t prepared in high school. The standards are going to be better in that teachers now, especially with mobility, with our military across different state lines, with our students who are mobile. We will now have, it’s almost like having a common electrical grid. Now you have innovation that can be tied to the actual high standard that we want to make sure that students learn. HH: Patricia Levesque of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, thank you for joining me. I’ll be right back, America. Stay tuned. Follow me, HughHewitt.com or at HughHewitt@twitter. To view online, please visit http://www.hughhewitt.com/talking-common-core-with-patricia-levesque. For more information on the Foundation for Excellence in Education, please visitwww.excelined.org.