Republicans Versus the Business Community

Republican office holders played a central role in the thirty-year process that forced the country to finally focus on repairing its generally mediocre public school system. Education minded governors like Lamar Alexander of Tennessee were early to the cause. And as President, George W. Bush pushed through the No Child Left Behind Act.

As such, the G.O.P. should be taking pride in the rigorous new Common Core education standards that have thus far been adopted by 45 states. After all, as Michael Petrilli of The Fordham Institute has written: The standards "are rigorous, they are traditional–one might even say they are ‘conservative.’ They expect students to know their math facts, to read the nation’s founding documents, and to evaluate evidence and come to independent judgments. In all of these ways, they are miles better than three-quarters of the state standards they replaced."

By BRENT STAPLES

Full Story: http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/republicans-versus-the-business-community/