The Texas Gov. Greg Abbott came out swinging against Common Core to former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett.
Abbott ripped the education standards, calling them a top-down approach that helps bureaucrats more than it does students. Instead of accepting Common Core, Abbott believes his state can offer a model for an alternative.
"We will improve our schools from the bottom up by allowing teachers to excel, by increasing parental involvement, by engaging students. The best way to do that is not with these one-size fits all mandates from Washington, D.C., or even from Austin, Texas, but instead giving flexibility at the local level, starting with building a strong foundation," Abbot said.
Abbott pressed that governors who adopted the Common Core standards have "buyers remorse."
Bennett charged that there are many myths surrounding Common Core to make it seem scary. Very quickly, the jab trading turned to the personal side.
"I’ve been for those principles since before Gov. Abbott was born," Bennett said.
To explain his objection to how Common Core teaches math to young students, Abbott encouraged parents to watch a teacher explain how 9+6=15.
"Using Secretary Bennett's words, there is an intellectual deficiency, and it was shown by the professor at Stanford who was the only person on the Common Core committee looking at mathematics, and that professor said that the mathematics portion of the common core will set students back in the United States of America instead of moving them forward. Again, the more we find out about Common Core, the more problematic it becomes," Abbott said.