Yes, Common Core Has Lobbyists

Despite their denials, national-standards advocates are a corporate-funded menace.

Attention, class: A Common Core mouthpiece wants to rap my knuckles with his Gates Foundation–funded ruler. In response to my column two weeks ago about the marketing overlords pushing the Fed Ed racket, Chad Colby of Achieve Inc. demanded corrections. Let’s go to school.

“I wanted to take a moment to highlight two points that were incorrect regarding Achieve,” Colby complained. “Contrary to Ms. Malkin’s assertion, Achieve employs no lobbyists and we never have.”

No? Never? Someone didn’t do his homework. Mr. Colby, meet Patricia Sullivan. She’s the founding executive director of Achieve and a career lobbyist who has bounced around D.C. for the past quarter-century in influence-peddling positions for the Gates Foundation–funded National Governors Association, Council for Chief State School Officers and Center on Education Policy. She has “advocated” for trade groups, a teachers’, union and her own “consulting firm.” That’s Washington-speak for “lobbying.”

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