Thanks To Todd Rehm from Gapundit for bringing this to our attention.

Nancy Jester: Common Core no path to prosperity

Nancy Jester, the former DeKalb County Board of Education member whose whistle-blower letter to SACS about financial irregularities led, ironically, to her removal with the rest of the Board members who were in office at the time, has penned an Op-Ed at the Marietta Daily Journal about Common Core.

It's worth reading because it's got more facts than most discussions of the controversial federal standards, and it also lays bare some issues with the Georgia standards that predate Common Core.

The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers may have had the best intentions, but as the process unfolded, political motivations and agendas took over. A recessionary economy and falling property values created budget crises in school districts across the country.

Into this situation, President Obama's Race to the Top grants offered a much needed infusion of federal money conditioned on adopting Common Core. At that point, Common Core ceased being voluntary and was no longer an effort to define rigorous standards with broad acceptance.

Once linked to grant money, the power over education standards shifted from states and districts to the federal level.

With Common Core in Georgia, we're told that the standards are closely aligned with Georgia's existing standards, as if that should make us all feel better.

In the early 2000s, the Georgia Department of Education adopted a social studies curriculum that is almost completely devoid of education on The Bill of Rights in elementary school. Yet, in third grade, we teach our children about the nine important people who "expanded rights." Those nine people are: Paul Revere, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Mary McLeod Bethune, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall, Lyndon B. Johnson, and César Chávez.

The same Georgia Department of Education asks us to trust them on adopting Common Core standards. The Georgia DOE that has been at the helm as we performed so poorly as a state on most education metrics.