Hess and Addison: Yes, Common Core Is Advancing a Left-Wing Agenda

Conservative grassroots parents, who voiced concerns that the true purpose of Common Core was to promote left-wing ideology in schools are vindicated, say education policy analysts at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

“Once upon a time, Common Core critics were roundly mocked for fearing that the reading and math standards would somehow serve to promote sweeping ideological agendas,” Frederick “Rick” Hess and Grant Addison wrote Thursday at National Review.

The authors explained, however, how education company UnboundEd CEO Kate Gerson recently announced to teachers attending her “standards-aligned” training: “If you are under the impression that there are good white people and bad white people, you’re wrong.”

After hearing Gerson’s pitch, Hess and Addison concluded, “Today, Gerson and her team are doing their best to vindicate those concerns.”

“Gerson informed her charges that racial biases are pervasive, universal, and something ‘you cannot be cured from,’” the AEI education policy analysts added and continued:

For this reason, UnboundEd’s training in reading and math instruction is “grounded in conversations about the roles that race, bias and prejudice play in our schools and classrooms.” Its Standards Institute prepares educators to be “Equity Change-Agents.” To become one, participants are told, they must first acknowledge that “we are part of a systematically racist system of education” and recognize that “we have participated in this paradigm through instruction and pedagogy.” As its “Bias Toolkit” explains, UnboundEd sees its mission as “disrupting patterns of implicit bias, privilege, and racism in ourselves, our organization, and in the education field.”

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