Former U.S. Senator and 2012 Iowa Caucus winner Rick Santorum joined the fight against Common Core. Today through his 501(c)4 organization, Patriot Voices, he sent the following email:
It is clear that our country’s education system is not working.
Even those who created Common Core agree that our public education system is flawed, but the problem is that Common Core advocates decided the answer was more government control and intervention. They got it so wrong.
The federal government should not be involved in creating standards that are implemented by the state. Instead, parents, teachers, school districts and local communities should be making these important decisions for their children.
Fundamentally, the revolution that has to occur in education is one that has our children finishing school with both the values and the knowledge to work hard, serve their community and prosper in society. Those ideals won’t come from the federal government, Common Core, No Child Left Behind, or even from standards being set at the state level. It’s going to come from parents who have control over the education of their children.
In addition to the loss of parental and local control, the waste of millions of dollars and the move towards developing a nationalized curriculum, another troubling aspect of Common Core is the data mining effort. There are reports that each state must maintain a statewide data system that will keep records on students from pre-K through college.
Instead of just fighting Common Core, we need a broader movement to put parents back in charge of the educational system. Fighting Common Core and other top-down education reforms is a good start in the right direction.
Common Core is wrong for our kids, wrong for our schools and wrong for our country! Let’s fight together for parental control in education!
Sincerely,
Rick Santorum
If Santorum plans to run for President in 2016 he took a step towards the grassroots on what could be an underrated wedge issue in the Iowa Caucus and beyond.
Photo by Dave Davidson – Prezography.com