Photo credit: Dave Davidson –Prezography.com
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has complained about the federal involvement with Common Core. There are ads in Iowa that paint the Common Core as “conservative.”
In 2011 Bush was singing a different tune.
At the 2011 Education Nation Summit hosted by NBC during a panel discussion Bush endorsed the Obama agenda to pressure states to adopt different education reforms. One reform that was pushed were college-and-career ready standards and Common Core was the only set of standards that met the criteria laid out in the Race to the Top application.
“Look, I think Secretary Duncan and President Obama deserve credit for pushing – for putting pressure on states to change, particularly the states that haven’t changed at all. They’re providing carrots and sticks and I think that’s appropriate,” Bush explained.
You can watch the video below:
So that doesn’t exactly sound like an endorsement of federalism to me. So again here is another example of a candidate saying one thing while on the campaign trail and an entirely different thing when he is in front of a friendly group.
So which is it Mr. Bush. Are you against Federal involvement or don’t you see the carrot and stick approach as an inappropriate influence? If Bush doesn’t see Race to the Top as an inappropriate use of Federal power what is?