Rob Cunningham is on the line with this easy a conservative activist filmmaker
USAF bat
Rob Cunningham USA dot com is his website
and he is an activist specifically around the issue of Common Core
Common Core is the Sat Nav a
math and and well here's
here's how it's described by the the
a hefty a the in june 10th the Common Core State Standards Initiative led by
the National Governors Association the council chiefs
state school officers least the Common Core State Standards CCSS for math
and english-language arts and literacy in history social studies science and
technology
the word out about 45 states the District of Columbia for territories
and the Department defense and %uh they call for a shift away from excessive
testing
and a shift away from test preparation
and a joint effort to develop highly focused
high-quality coherent curriculum and systems arm
so any help Rob Cunningham hey Rob welcome to the program
hey Tom thank you so much for having so
you know I I I was all major credit to go after Common Core
I remember back in 2010
water 2002 I forget what year was arm
I would I had a conversation with jim jeffords in his office
the senator from vermont at the time I was living in vermont I was writing a
book that ultimately became call
on equal protection and he left the Republican Party over No Child Left
Behind
because he asked the Congressional Research Service though the one that
answers to Congress rather than to we the people I
you know i mean they they do studies just for individual members of congress
need to study for him
I'm what will be the impact ive No Child Left Behind in the study basically and
their
of shared part so that with me I to the extent that they legally could I
couldn't reprint it
but basically what it said was the outcome others
is that the 100 million dollar-a-year testing industry is going to become a
multibillion-dollar your test industry crisis was in the early years of the
Bush administration
and george bush's brother Neil was the you know had just started cranking up a
big
educational testing business and
as so you know nobody should become very very rich as a result of this
and that's offender James Jeffords that he left the Republican Party
I would use I was assuming the Common Core was the same thing and then I had a
conversation 3d weingarten a couple weeks ago
with the humor Federation teachers a blue she's the president up
and and she's like now this not about testing at all it's a completely
different thing
what's your objection to this well
personally just put on record my mom was a school teacher for 31 years
my wife well her mother's been a school teacher for
almost 60 years she 78 years old still substitute teachers in Jacksonville
Florida
so my arm my concerns here are more
the one-size-fits-all approach to education regardless so
location regardless a status regardless of whether your gifted child or whether
you're special needs with an individual educational development plan
a one size since all approach to education
is absolutely destructive to the
or teaching I don't disagree with that i mean that the these are though
me just basic minimum standards or
for normal curriculum there are obviously exceptions in here for
programs for gifted kids
there obviously exceptions in here for for kids who are not I
well I E Pease who you know who are struggling or who have learning
disabilities
that's not what common core is all about are
I thought one of the cool things about comic for and
and I you know I remember you know when jim jeffords told me that
and I was like why Republicans supporting this and he was like
because we're getting a lot of money from and that or you know why is this
become a conservative issue and and how to Teddy Kennedy get
bamboozled with this thing and he said you republicans are supporting this
cause we're getting a lot of money for the private testing industry
there's there there are billions of dollars used to be millions now there
are billions of dollars in profits to be made
from No Child Left Behind what I like about common core
is that it's open source in other words we can go back
to the what I had when I was going to school at my was ok
a kid in elementary school in nineteen fifties was
the teachers would take the test and they would run them off on the email
machine
and passing out because they were you know they they were copyright freer they
were in the public domain I the copyright was given to the teachers
and with Common Core there's no copyright there's no money to be made
and so I can understand where you know the the
the the companies that were funding in the republican party so heavily during
no child left behind. might be opposed to common core
but I don't get why somebody like yourself who has a concern about
education would be opposed to it
well Tom are gonna ask you don't dig a little deeper because there's a massive
amount to testing
and I'll tell you right now the educators
it progresses against common core are completely against the testing that is
off the charts the marketing the nasa gene in the in the folks that are behind
this that are proponents of Common Core
may be telling you that this is not about testing I can tell you right now
the teachers or outraged at the level
testing the teacher assessments the teacher assessments are linked to the
student
testing performance in every night I i mean I'm sorry wrong
I E I've got this article here the senate's call toll to kids must take
standardized tests whether they agree or not
from politic Czech star TV about Karen Piper
I'm this what she's referencing is
a OCGA organ lot 20 dash to dash 282
seaboard educational 160 dashboard dash to da 11
this is from the 2003 school year first of all
and secondly it was mandated by the Elland Elementary and Secondary
Education Act the ESEA which is part of No Child Left Behind
correct so this has not a a common core
eliminates thats Tom
common core was written in sworn secrecy
mean a collaborative group in was funded and launched by the stimulus package
it was written in collaboration but again sworn secrecy
all four sending matters English Language Arts
social studies science and math were written they were gradually roll now
those that disagree some of the most brilliant educators in america
if they disagree with us so tell me something they disagree with here
a Rob you're here your host a comic or what high school
high school math help map has the absolute single highest correlation
26 ask post-high school right no matter what someone in the Common Core
standards specifically high school now stops in Algebra two
they are not stem ready curriculum and standards to give
kids in a global economy that's growing
see you object to a lack of calculus or Tracy called over to
Alger Tunis the standard it stop alger to be surely
early damn complex its two-year is set just two years behind where we are today
time and ross' back it makes is less competitive we're being told that this
is a rigorous set a standard in its not
is bringing his back is taking classical
education putting it in a meat grinder how many kids who are graduating from
high school in the united states right now
nationwide do you think could actually pass
an algebra 2 test Tom ugly one better
the murder in new england primer that we started with black in the early eighteen
hundreds
I would bet you 20 percent of high school graduates today could not pass
the new england primer of course they couldn't but let's let's not compare now
with that i mean
the there the OPP well why would we want to have her students to have a
comprehensive working knowledge that is based on creating your objection a
common core than
is that it's not difficult enough no comment on the comedy club
you and I'll probably gonna agree on a couple things number one the corporate
cronyism and ball
there's no reason the bill and Melinda Gates has spent over three billion
dollars a week in cannot
on the development a common core standards there's no reason in the world
do or not in the educational testing business you're in the in Luton
in fact this was put this is this is open source stuff
it's on the freemen copyright look at the data collection related to come
towards me under comment and look at industry leader surrounded by it
so there's still an opportunity for somebody to make a living its Makem
upjohn's and tons and tons of money
Pearson Education pearson PLC on the two largest companies in the world
and they're involved in planning the text books okay I gotta
thats is the Thom Hartmann program Rob Cunningham USA dot com is the website
and thank you rob for being opposed to big companies making money off architect
Richard
will be back