Shocking HuffPo on Common Core - it's O's fault!

It's Obama's fault.

The state-led initiative was chugging right along, moving forward without any interference from the feds, when somehow, they decided to leap in. Or as Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday recently put it, things were fine "until the President and secretary of education took credit for the Common Core." This is part of the current conservative CCSS support narrative (you can find put forth by, among others, the boys over at the Fordham). The story goes something like this:

Once upon a time, some noble governors and dedicated corporate guys got together and created the Common Core, and people pretty much thought it was swell. Then the Obama administration tried to get involved with cheerleading and with Racing to the Top and NCLB waivers. This was a Bad Thing because it woke up the Tea Party folks, who began shrieking about federal over-reach. People who wouldn't have cared one way or another suddenly were against it because Obama was for it and whatever he's doing, it must be evil. If the feds had just stayed home and tended to their knitting, we would not be having all this CCSS fracasization.

Isn't it pretty to think so. Here's why there is no alternate timeline based on those halcyon days before the feds got involved, before CCSS was gone with the DC wind.

There Was Never A "Before the Feds Got Involved."

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