Pacific Research Institute Co-Sponsored Study Says Common Core National Education Standards are Expensive and Undermine State and Local Control
San Francisco A just-published study by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute and co-sponsored by the California-based Pacific Research Institute, the American Principles Project and the Civitas Institute concludes that the Common Core national education standards supported by the Obama administration have undermined the traditional and historical ability of state and local decision-makers to control education policies involving standards, testing and curricula.
Authored by former Texas commissioner of education Robert Scott, with a preface by U.S. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the study demonstrates the falsity of the claim by the Obama administration and others that the Common Core standards were voluntarily adopted by the states with no federal coercion. Further, the Common Core standards are not as rigorous as standards in states such as California, will disrupt Californias textbook adoption process, and will increase education costs such as testing, technology, teacher professional development, and a range of other costs.
Most important, Scott says, “Common Core fundamentally alters the relationship between the federal government and the states,” and that these new national standards will cause the United States to lose that which makes our education system unique among nations: our long tradition of state and local autonomy.
Lance Izumi, Koret senior fellow and senior director of PRIs Center for Education, says: “Former Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott is absolutely correct that the national Common Core education standards will undermine the ability of ordinary people, especially parents, to make and influence decisions about what takes place in the classroom. Yes, these national standards will be costly to implement, but the overriding threat is to our historical commitment to local control over education. A top-down one-size-fits-all education system may suit Washington bureaucrats and special interests, but it will reduce accountability, dim transparency, prevent reform and, most important, dis-empower the American people.”
