“Rent Seekers” Pushing Common Core in Indiana
As many opponents of the Common Core have long known, the effort to undo the Common Core is bipartisan. Journalist Joy Pullmann pulls together the bipartisan relationships that are forming around Anti-Common Core legislation. In Indiana, the Democratic Superintendent of Education, Glenda Ritz, has recognized a need for the bill to withdraw Indiana out of the Common Core. Both Republican and Democratic legislators are authors of the bill in both the Senate and House.
“Newly elected state Superintendent Glenda Ritz, a Democrat and former teachers union president, has signaled her support for SB 193 based on concerns she’s heard from teachers, administrators, and parents around the state, said Indiana Department of Education spokesman David Galvin.”
The main opposition from the bill is coming from business groups such as the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. They are desperate and trying to mischaracterize supporters as radical right wing nut jobs. In fact, the Chamber circulated an email to its membership to oppose the bill and called the bill’s supporters “out-of-state special interests, tea party activists and conservative Republican legislators.” How does he explain the Democrats who are on board with the bill?
Pullmann continues to point out that opposition to the bill is coming from groups with financial ties to the Common Core standards like the above mentioned Chamber.
“Since 2007, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Common Core’s underwriter stationed in Washington state, gave the ICC’s parent organization $3.8 million to “engage the business community” to support national standards. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce then disseminated this money and advocacy to its state and local members, according to public tax documents.”
I dropped by after Erin’s constructive contribution on the Ravitch blog. I’m puzzled by this post, though. I would not use “rent seeking” to characterize an attempt to address a “broken educational system that threatens workforce competitiveness and long-term prosperity”
Thanks for your comment. I was referring to the Chamber of Commerce as “rent seekers”. It is an economic term to describe many different scenarios, one being when money is spent on political lobbying in order to be given a share of wealth that has already been created. The Chamber has lobbied for many education reforms in the past including Goals 2000 and NCLB. Their ideas of reform do not work. They are planned to keep wealth among their top members in publishing and testing of students.