Politics, policy, parents and the Common Core

Guests: Fawn Johnson, Andrew Rotherham and Jonathan Supovitz

What’s all the fuss about the Common Core? When the National Governors Association launched the effort to create the Common Core in 2009, mostly everyone agreed the country needed one set of English/language and math standards for all K-12 students. But as states began implementing the new curriculum and students began taking the new tests to assess their progress, things got more complicated. Parents began pushing back concerned, among other things, about pressure on their children, the hours students spent prepping for the tests, and the role of federal government in education. Then, as several states rescinded their adoption of the new standards and in 2014, the Common Core emerged as an issue in local school board, gubernatorial and U.S congressional races. And now it’s taken center stage in the 2016 presidential race, particularly within the GOP. Today, on Radio Times, we’ll look at the political, policy and parental backlash against the Common Core standards and testing. Our guests are FAWN JOHNSON, a correspondent for the National Journal, policy analyst ANDREW ROTHERHAM, and Penn professor and researcher JONATHAN SUPOVITZ.