Missouri GOP: No Common Core Standards, but we will do what Rex Sinquefield says

The complete hypocrisy of the Missouri Republican Party's approach to education can be seen in its stance on Common Core Standards.

While I do have some concerns about Common Core Standards, they are light years beyond the current Missouri GLEs (Grade Level Expectations).

Today's Joplin Globe featured an examination by statehouse correspondent Eli Yokley on our legislators' positions on Common Core. Not surprisingly, many of them are steadfastly opposed, as usual complaining about overreaching by the federal government:

State Rep. Charlie Davis, R-Joplin, said while he sees education as a priority of state government, he does not want to accept some national standards.

“The education of our children is a priority of mine. Ensuring that we are truly educating them is the responsibility of our local school boards. Local control is important to me,” Davis said last week.

The issue came up again last month while the House of Representatives was debating its fiscal year 2014 budget. State Rep. Kurt Bahr, R-St. Charles, offered an amendment that would ban the state from spending any money to implement Common Core standards.

Bahr said he opposed the program because he is concerned about the cost of its implementation, accessibility for rural districts to be able to participate in online tests, and a general desire to protect state sovereignty from the federal government.

“We don’t have the control over standards or the nature of the assessment in our state,” he said, adding that he is concerned that more liberal national and international groups might gain influence over Missouri education.

“The people who work in the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the U.N. (United Nations) are going to tend to be more liberal, so I think it’s fair to ask what kind of liberal materials could be forced on our kids,” he said last week.

In the first place, Common Core Standards did not come as a mandate from the federal government, but came from governors of our states- officials who are answerable to the people, not federal bureaucrats.

But even more importantly, how hypocritical is it that our elected officials, who scream about the evils of the federal government every chance they get, and who speak with a near religious fervor about the importance of keeping the control of public schools in the hands of local school boards, are so willing to bend over backwards to follow the dictates of one man, billionaire Rex Sinquefield, whose anti-public school plans will do more to take control away from local school boards than anything being contemplated under Common Core Standards?

This opposition to Common Core Standards has little to do with concern about education or a desire to keep control of public schools in the hands of local elected officials.

It is just another chance for GOP legislators to thump their chests and show their defiance of the federal government.

If they truly cared about education in Missouri, they would be spending more time trying to find jobs and eliminate poverty in the Show-Me State. Those are two things that would immediately benefit education. And they would stay away from their attempts to micromanage schools, something which will do far more to erode local control than anything being contemplated by the federal government.

That is not going to happen- at least until some billionaire tells them that would be the right thing to do.