Ohio Gov. Kasich: Common Core Resistance Is ‘Hysteria’

Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich does not believe his state lawmakers will repeal the Common Core standards, calling resistance to the controversial initiative “hysteria.”

According to The Blaze, Kasich said about Common Core, “When you study the issue, you separate the hysteria from the reality.”

“We have carried it out. We have higher standards. We want our kids to perform better and do better,” Kasich continued. “The standards are determined by our local school boards. There is total local control. I think there has been a hysteria about this that is not well founded.”

Ohio Department of Education spokesman John Charlton said parents may opt their children out of assessments — adding students who are opted out will suffer consequences, according to Cincinnati.com.

Students who do not take the third-grade reading test, for example, and, therefore, do not have a score, could be retained in the third grade. Students who do not take the state graduation tests will not be eligible to receive a high school diploma.

Additionally, students who do not take the Common Core assessments will receive a “zero” as indicated on school and district report cards, said Damon Asbury, director of legislative services with the Ohio School Boards Association. Teachers and school districts, however, were reportedly given protection from having assessment results affect their performance ratings this past year.

“The standards were established by governors and were established by education professionals at the state level,” Kasich said, according to The Blaze. “In our state, in order to get higher standards, which we all want in America, it’s up to the local school board to design the curriculum to meet the higher standards. We don’t know what would be wrong with that.”

Thea Shoemake, a parent grassroots activist who opposes the Common Core standards, said she finds Kasich’s statements about the standards nothing less than “ignorant.”

“Most are aware that Gov. Kasich would like to throw his progressive hat into the presidential race, and equally aware that Race to the Top and Common Core are already major factors in the vetting process,” Shoemake told Breitbart News. “What better way to generate name recognition without having to pay for it, and tip his hat to big government, progressive donors, than to bully the masses behind the groundswell of opposition?”

“Otherwise, if he is indeed still that ignorant after two years of national headlines, and repeal efforts in other states, then he has already handicapped himself out of the presidential pool,” she said. “I cannot see any GOP candidate who is on board with Race to the Top and Common Core, reaching the magic number of 270 electoral votes.”

“At this point, after shoving Medicaid expansion & Common Core down the throats of Ohioans, I’d say Gov. Kasich may indeed be a good fit as Hillary Clinton’s running mate,” Shoemake added.

Ohio is one of 45 states whose state boards of education adopted the Common Core standards, a federally-promoted education initiative introduced in the Obama administration’s 2009 stimulus bill through a competitive grant program called Race to the Top (RttT). States could apply and compete for federal grant money as long as they adopted a set of “common,” uniform standards and aligned testing that allows for a greater role of government in education, student data collection, and teacher evaluations based on student performance on assessments aligned with the standards.

The state boards of education that signed onto the unproven Common Core standards — most of them unelected — did so with little, if any, public or media scrutiny, prior to even seeing the standards themselves.

The National Governors Association (NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and nonprofit progressive education think tank Achieve, Inc. were mainly responsible for the initiative, and both the NGA and the CCSSO are the publishers of the Common Core State Standards. All three groups were funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The two interstate test consortia — Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) — are developing assessments based on the Common Core standards and are funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

There is no official information about who selected the individuals to write the Common Core standards. None of the writers of the math and English Language Arts standards have ever taught math, English, or reading at the K-12 level. In addition, the Standards Development Work Groups did not include any members who were high school English and mathematics teachers, English professors, scientists, engineers, parents, state legislators, early childhood educators, and state or local school board members.