jindal to sue over common core

[Danzig]

looks like jindal will be running in '16...


http://news.msn.com/us/apnewsbreak-j...er-common-core


BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. Bobby Jindal planned to file a lawsuit Wednesday against the Obama administration, accusing it of illegally manipulating federal grant money and regulations to force states to adopt the Common Core education standards.

The U.S. Department of Education has used a $4.3 billion grant program and federal policy waivers to encourage states to adopt uniform education standards and testing. The Republican governor says that "effectively forces states down a path toward a national curriculum" in violation of the state sovereignty clause in the Constitution and federal laws that prohibit national control of education content.

A draft copy of the lawsuit was provided to The Associated Press by the governor's office. Jindal planned to file it Wednesday in the federal court based in Baton Rouge.

The legal challenge puts Jindal, who is considering a 2016 presidential bid, at the forefront of a dispute between conservatives and President Barack Obama, bolstering the governor's profile on the issue as he's trying to court conservative voters nationwide.

"The federal government has hijacked and destroyed the Common Core initiative," Jindal said in a statement. "Common Core is the latest effort by big government disciples to strip away state rights and put Washington, D.C., in control of everything."

The Common Core standards are math and English benchmarks describing what students should know after completing each grade. They were developed by states to allow comparison of students' performance. More than 40 states, including Louisiana, have adopted them.

When the state education board adopted the standards in 2010, Jindal supported them, saying they would help students to better prepare for college and careers. He reversed course earlier this year, however, and now says he opposes the standards because they are an effort by the Obama administration to meddle in state education policy.
(and it's a hot topic and an easy way to oppose obama)

The governor's change of heart is not shared by lawmakers, the state education board and his hand-picked education superintendent, all of whom refuse to jettison Common Core from Louisiana's classrooms. Jindal tried to derail use of the standards by suspending testing contracts, but a state judge lifted that suspension, calling the governor's actions harmful to parents, teachers and students.

so, he takes the feds to task for trying to force policy, and then tries to force policy thru suspending contracts.
look, common core makes complete sense. people move from state to state, it's become far more common for people to migrate essentially. their kids education should just be able to move along smoothly, no matter where they are.

[GenuineRisk]

He's clearly playing to what he hopes will be his national base, throwing them some red meat.

What he doesn't look at, and what isn't discussed, is that the lack of a national plan for education actually allows some states to have an inordinate amount of control over what the rest of the nation learns, basically giving Texas more power than the rest of the states to decide what kids need to know. It's because textbook publishers, being a for-profit enterprise, have to kowtow to their largest customers, even if those customers are religious nutballs.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arch...-on-us/?page=1

National education plans would not only make it easier for people to move their families from one state to another without screwing up their kids' educations, it would also ultimately be more fair to all states, because there would presumably be more than just Texas or California dictating what should be in a textbook.