Common Core Bringing People Together…

… against it, as a wide coalition continues to push to rid education of this latest federal assault.

Politico looks at actions on the local level challenging adoption of the Common Core:

School districts from New Hampshire to Oregon are revolting against the coming Common Core tests.

Even as political leaders in both red and blue states continue to back away from the standards — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is the latest example — the hottest battles have shifted to the local level, where education officials are staging public revolts against state and federal mandates to administer Common Core exams. . . .

“Common Core is a badly damaged brand, and you see public officials trying to get some distance,” said Rick Hess, an education policy analyst for the conservative American Enterprise Institute. . . .

Of particular interest is this section:

But just one state has granted local districts the right to choose whether to administer Common Core tests at all — and they’re doing it in violation of federal law.

In Massachusetts, roughly half of students will take the Common Core PARCC tests in the spring; the rest will continue to take the state’s own standardized tests. Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester — who also happens to chair the governing board of PARCC — has said the system will give the state a chance to test-drive the PARCC exam before deciding next fall whether to administer it statewide.

The Education Department has explicitly told Massachusetts that it does not have permission to run this kind of experiment because it violates No Child Left Behind. But it has declined to take punitive action as long as Massachusetts adopts a single statewide exam by the 2016 testing season. . . .

Will we ultimately see states take an approach ala REAL ID and refuse to implement federal mandates if Common Core complaints continue to increase?

Learn more about how a stand is being taken by reading the full piece here.

Campaign for Liberty state and local leaders have been on the frontlines of this battle and will continue fighting hard for education freedom as resistance to this invasive (and ridiculous) program grows.