Former Florida Gov. and GOP primary candidate Jeb Bush has been making the rounds in the wake of making his presidential run official, and made a stop in Tampa Friday to headline the annual Hillsborough County Republican Party Lincoln Day dinner at TPepin's Hospitality Centre.
In a 20-minute speech, he outlined his platform and announced Tampa — not Miami, his home city — would be home to his statewide campaign headquarters.
Outside the venue, dozens of opponents of controversial Common Core education standards, which include the implementation of national standardized testing, greeted him.
“We want to let elected officials and candidates at all levels know that there is a significant grassroots pushback against Common Core,” said Terry Kemple, president and founder of Community Issues Council and ultra-conservative perennial school board candidate. “We also want to give the people in the community the opportunity to learn about the significant flaws in nationwide standards. Common Core isn’t what it’s touted to be and parents need to know this.”
As is the case with his stance on immigration, Bush has found himself in a weird spot on Common Core. He is the only, as CNN puts it, "top-tier presidential hopeful who is still defending Common Core." Most Republicans oppose the policy, while proponents, like President Obama, say the standards will help keep the U.S. competitive on the world stage and create a workforce that is literate on multiple levels.
The policy's critics say it is government overreach of dystopian proportions.
“We’re standing up for our children because we are against national standards,” said Emma Jane Miller, a former private school teacher from Valrico who helped organize the rally. She is also a member of the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee (REC).
Opposition to Common Core is bipartisan, said Natalie Tomczak, who is also a member of the REC.
“The left-wing people are very opposed to teacher evaluations and the testing,” said Tomczak. “We’re also passionate about the big government, the huge costs involved and the curriculum.”
Common Core is a set of academic standards that outlines what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each school year, according to its website. The standards were created to ensure all U.S. students graduate from high school with the necessary skills and are comparable to their international peers.
Opponents argue that Common Core is a one-size-fits-all education policy that assumes every student learns exactly the same way, which could harm students’ creativity and learning.
“Everybody, including your English language learners who have English as a second language and your special needs children, have (has) to rise to the standards,” said Heide Janshon, a mother of two. “There’s no exception for them.”
So far, 43 states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity have voluntarily accepted and adopted Common Core.
The state of Florida received $700 million to implement new Common Core standards and to adopt a system to evaluate teacher, principal and school performance, according to the Florida Department of Education. The program is being implemented currently, and replaced the state's also-controversial FCAT assessment.
“Our kids are being robbed of instructional time. My son is 10 and he was expected to sit for 9 ½ hours of testing to evaluate his teacher and to give his school a grade,” Janshon said. “It has no academic value for the child. I opted them out. My kids did not take the test at all.”
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2015.