Over at WSOCTV, there is an article titled “Parent’s, Teachers, frustrated by Common Core Stoppage”. Funny title, since no teacher is quoted in the article and the parent interviewed seems indifferent. But the parent, Elyse Dashew, isn’t your ordinary parent but an education activist who has run for school board before. It appears that the only people interviewed are those who have invested their time promoting the Common Core.  If you want to see real parents thoughts, look through the comments on the article.

The article comes with a video which states ‘millions have been spent on Common Core’. Those millions? Race To The Top grant money. We can’t even be sure how much of it was spent on Common Core either, as State Superintendent Atkinson keeps changing her figures.

The  WSOCTV article focuses on Keith Poston of NC Public Schools Forum, who dutifully continues to carry water for Common Core despite the repeal and sizable growing drop in support for the standards.  NC Public Schools Forum is pretty much a who’s who of the Chamber of Commerce and mirrors many of the members of the Chamber’s pro-Core special project “Hire Standards“.  NC Public Schools Forum is all in on Common Core.

NC Public Schools Forum is a Pro-Common Core group.
Quick reminder of the $5,483,812 and $59,018 they received from the Bill Gates Foundation to promote  “college ready” related initiatives.

One NC Public Schools Forum  board and forum member is Gene Arnold.
You remember Mr. Arnold, right?
He’s the NC Public Schools Forum member who went on NC Spin and announced the Chamber was going to blackmail legislators who tried to pass a Common Core repeal.  By the way CCSSO President-Elect, Dr. Atkinson, is also on the forum list of members along with the NCAE, SAS and every major Core supporter in the state.

More pro-Core empty talking points
All they have left are talking points, which we’ll get to in a moment. Support for the Core is deteriorating at a rapid rate both among parents and now among teachers and the public is pushing back.

Pro-CC Cabal, where’s your “misinformed” talking point God now? Support for CC plummets with teachers http://t.co/SEgczozAsg #StopCommonCore

— LL1885 – A.P. Dillon (@LadyLiberty1885) August 19, 2014

Poston delivered a string of pro-Core talking points in the interview with WSOCTV, which I’ve snagged and posted below:

“The first concern was just the disruption and constant change,” said Keith Poston, president and executive director of Public School Forum.

“If the state moves forward with a completely new set of standards, those costs are going to be ours,” Poston said.

I think there’s just a little bit of frustration they’re like, here we go again,” Poston said.

Let’s break these talking points down.

1. Disruption and constant change?
Gee, the powers that be weren’t worried about disruption a bit when they adopted Common Core and then shoved it into our schools with little to no training, support materials or even a curriculum behind it. The powers that be weren’t worried about constant change either since our standards in North Carolina are reviewed every 5 years and our most recent review had been in process when Common Core came along.  Don’t take my word for it, listen to the teachers who had to deal with it.

2. New set of standards being our cost?
Newsflash, Mr. Poston — they’ve would have been “our” cost regardless. Common Core’s Race To The Top grant has been exhausted; there is no more federal sugar left. The costs of Common Core are estimated to be in upwards of  $15.8 billion nationally, and $641.9 million for North Carolina. Put that in perspective with the Race To The Top grant of almost $400 million, of which only a portion was spent on Common Core.

3. Here we go again?
What in the world is Poston talking about? Oh that’s right, we snuck Common Core into NC without any teacher input, training or support. It’s turned out to be a fundamentally flawed experiment turned train wreck, but let’s keep going?

The article also mentions CMS Superintendent Heath Morrison — another of the Common Core faithful. Morrison is a member of the Large District Superintendent’s power block, which tried to ram a 7 year use of Common Core through. Read about that here: New NC Superintendent “Consortium” Recommends 7 Year Common Core Lock In Related:  

Bad? More like total disaster. => Common Core’s Very Bad, Terrible Day on Twitter. August 19, 2014 http://t.co/Rg6h8XGmcQ #stopcommoncore

— LL1885 – A.P. Dillon (@LadyLiberty1885) August 20, 2014