Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal sues federal government over Common Core

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Screren shot from Common Core textbook, World History

Scr­eren shot from Com­mon Core text­book, World History

Bra­vo!

I have writ­ten on the islamiza­tion of pub­lic school cur­ricu­lum via Com­mon Core.

Free­dom Out­post: Com­mon Core Islam­ic indoc­tri­na­tion of stu­dents in Amer­i­can schools is overt. This is the goal. In Volu­sia Coun­ty Flori­da, hun­dreds are protest­ing the ode to Islam that is “World His­to­ry,” a Com­mon Core approved high school his­to­ry text­book. With an entire chap­ter ded­i­cat­ed to the virtues of Islam, and not a sin­gle chap­ter for Chris­tian­i­ty, the text­book has Florid­i­ans in a fren­zy. And who is the biggest push­er of Com­mon Cores besides left­ist pro­gres­sives? The Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca, anoth­er Mus­lim Broth­er­hood front group, along with Hamas-CAIR; and in Flori­da, Hamas-CAIR is on the offensive.

The con­tro­ver­sy start­ed unrav­el­ing after a 15-year-old Del­tona high school stu­dent showed her mom her 10th-grade his­to­ry book, which has an entire chap­ter ded­i­cat­ed to Islam but none of the oth­er world religions.

A con­ser­v­a­tive activist went to Face­book, call­ing for a cur­ricu­lum over­haul, and near­ly 200 activists are plan­ning a protest at tomorrow’s Volu­sia Coun­ty School Board meeting.

The prob­lem is: there needs to be bal­ance. In Amer­i­ca today, Chris­tian­i­ty is being rel­e­gat­ed to the trash heap. Why rel­e­gate Chris­tian­i­ty to a foot­note in an entire his­to­ry book, and you give an entire chap­ter on the teach­ings of Islam? “Dis­trict 2 Del­tona com­mis­sion­er Web­ster Barn­a­by said.

Michelle Malkin

Michelle Malkin

But it’s much more than that. Michelle Malkin described Com­mon Core this way, “Com­mon Core’s dubi­ous ‘col­lege- and career’-ready stan­dards under­mine local con­trol of edu­ca­tion, usurp state auton­o­my over cur­ric­u­lar mate­ri­als, and foist untest­ed, mediocre and inco­her­ent ped­a­gog­i­cal the­o­ries on America’s schoolchildren.”

Ze’ev Wur­man, a promi­nent soft­ware archi­tect, elec­tri­cal engi­neer and long­time math advi­so­ry expert in Cal­i­for­nia and Wash­ing­ton, D.C., said of Com­mon Core;

I believe the Com­mon Core marks the ces­sa­tion of edu­ca­tion­al stan­dards improve­ment in the Unit­ed States. No state has any rea­son left to aspire for first-rate stan­dards, as all states will be judged by the same mediocre nation­al bench­mark enforced by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. More­over, there are orga­ni­za­tions that have rea­sons to work for low­er and less-demand­ing stan­dards, specif­i­cal­ly teach­ers unions and pro­fes­sion­al teacher orga­ni­za­tions. While they may not admit it, they have a vest­ed inter­est in low­er­ing the account­abil­i­ty bar for their mem­bers. …This will be done in the name of ‘crit­i­cal think­ing’ and ’21st-cen­tu­ry’ skills, and in far­away Wash­ing­ton, D.C., well beyond the reach of par­ents and most states and employers.”

Lousisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

Lousisiana Gov­er­nor Bob­by Jindal

Bra­vo to Jindal.

Louisiana Gov. Jin­dal sues fed­er­al gov­ern­ment over Com­mon Core,” FOX News, August 28, 2014

Louisiana Gov. Bob­by Jin­dal filed a law­suit against the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion in fed­er­al court Wednes­day, claim­ing that the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion has ille­gal­ly manip­u­lat­ed grant mon­ey and reg­u­la­tions to force states to adopt the con­tro­ver­sial Com­mon Core standards.

In the suit, Jin­dal argues that the Edu­ca­tion Department’s $4.3 bil­lion grant pro­gram “effec­tive­ly forces states down a path toward a nation­al cur­ricu­lum” in vio­la­tion of the state sov­er­eign­ty clause in the Con­sti­tu­tion and fed­er­al laws that pro­hib­it nation­al con­trol of edu­ca­tion con­tent. The suit asks a judge to declare the department’s actions uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and to keep it from dis­qual­i­fy­ing states from receiv­ing Race to the Top funds based on a refusal to use Com­mon Core or to par­tic­i­pate in one of two state test­ing con­sor­tia tied to the department’s grant program.

The legal chal­lenge puts Jin­dal, who is con­sid­er­ing a 2016 pres­i­den­tial bid, at the fore­front of a dis­pute between con­ser­v­a­tives and Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, bol­ster­ing the governor’s pro­file on the issue as he’s try­ing to court con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers nationwide.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has hijacked and destroyed the Com­mon Core ini­tia­tive,” Jin­dal said in a state­ment. “Com­mon Core is the lat­est effort by big gov­ern­ment dis­ci­ples to strip away state rights and put Wash­ing­ton, D.C., in con­trol of everything.”

The Com­mon Core stan­dards are math and Eng­lish bench­marks describ­ing what stu­dents should know after com­plet­ing each grade. They were devel­oped by states to allow com­par­i­son of stu­dents’ per­for­mance. More than 40 states, includ­ing Louisiana, have adopt­ed them.