NC PolicyWatch (the blog mouthpiece of NC Justice Center/BlueprintNC etc) has picked at writing on Common Core over the last few months. They desperately want to jump on the the heads of the Republicans at the NCGA, yet the fundamental flaws with Common Core may have the writers over there taking pause at doing so just yet.

They do have an article up right now by Matt Ellinwood called, Diverse organizations support Common Core as N.C. and other states back away. Besides being written from a 30,000 feet view. It’s got a few important things wrong with it. I attempted to leave the following comment below, but I couldn’t tell if their site took it or not.  Read the piece first, it’s short.

My response:

Thank you for covering this topic, however I’d like to point out a few corrections.

Nearly everyone who has ‘supported’ Common Core has received funding from the Gates Foundation or a partner group of the Gates Foundation. For example, you wrote:
“the Common Core has garnered support from the United States Army (including retired United States Army Generals from North Carolina)”

Did you bother to look into this ‘group of Generals’? I did. (http://wp.me/p14vwx-2LG)

“These Generals and military leaders are from a group called Mission:Readiness, which is a 501(c)3 located at 1212 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005.

That’s also the address for Council for a Strong America, Ready Nation, America’s Edge, Fight Crime: Invest In Kids and Shepherding the Next Generation. I’m sure there are others.

Go back to the first one on the list, Council for a Strong America. They are the anchor at that address. They also seem to have a strong anchor at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Council for a Strong America received $1.7 million last year alone to promote Common Core. By the way, you might have figured it out already by checking out the “Members in Action” drop down menu on the Council for a Strong America site that all the others on the above list are offshoots of Council for a Strong America. This includes Mission: Readiness.”

You also wrote:
“Every education expert who has studied the Common Core Standards agrees that they are an improvement over the previous North Carolina Standard Course of Study.”

Wrong. One expert has said this. Michael Brickman of the Fordham Institute.
Mr. Brickman waved around the “Grading Report” his Institute did as proof NC’s standards were bad, yet no one bothered to ask him who paid for that report. If you guessed The Gates Foundation, you’d be correct. In fact, Fordham has received quite a lot of funding from Bill Gates.
What’s rather comical is one of Fordham’s own has contradicted the report Brickman waved at the Legislature. Terry Ryan (Fordham VP in Ohio area) said NC and some other states were better than CC. In fact, he called CC “floor level” as standards go.
Read it here: http://stopcommoncorenc.org/2014/04/07/indiana-massachusetts-north-carolina-tennessee-better-standards-cc/