Common Core--Pivotal or Pyrrhic?

By Dr. Brad Lyles —— Bio and Archives March 11, 2014

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The national Common Core conflagration threatens the vitality of the Conservative movement. Yet how can Conservatives not contend, and aggressively, with the insidious wickedness that is Common Core?

Defeating Common Core is pivotal – but we must ask at what cost. Specifically, might we prevail over Common Core – yet fail in the larger war against Statism? The Common Core State Standards Initiative (for math and language) began as a Gates’ Foundation/U.S. Department of Education’s innocuous-sounding scheme promoted by the National Governors’ Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers “to establish consistent education standards across the states as well as ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to enter two- or four-year college programs or enter the workforce.” Who could argue with such laudable declared intentions? Common Core consistently markets itself with language sounding good to everyone – but this language is deceptively Orwellian “doublespeak,” obscuring the underlying threat. Predictably, Common Core was the product of countless well-meaning educators, parents, administrators, politicians and advocates. With so many credible authors, so many disciplines engaged and invested, Common Core’s perfidious designs were not widely recognized until several years after its initial implementation. Consequently, conservative activists have been forced to catch up - and they almost have – but at what cost? Multiple constituencies now understand Common Core involves nationalization (politicization) of education, national standards (intentional “dumbing down”), ingrained propaganda (diversity, “right” thinking, “correct” attitudes – even worse than at present), and deceptive measurement techniques assessing success of political indoctrination more than academic mastery. Common Core must be opposed.

In understanding these realities, a groundswell of grassroots efforts against Common Core have mushroomed into political activism nearly the equivalent of the origins of the Tea Party movement. This is understandable. Each layer of Common Core exposed to illumination is more frightening than the one before. In this time, then, whether one should contend with Common Core is not the question – the question is how best to contend, how to prevail in the Common Core battle and also win the larger war. The massive, detailed, comprehensive, persistent grassroots efforts challenging Common Core are astounding. However, in a world limited in time (24/7), personal energy and resources (money, volunteers), and with all of the world’s other demands upon one’s time, it is unclear what of this labor, that of fighting Common Core, is drawing from resources not easily replenished. In particular, will our forces suffer so greatly in fighting Common Core they will be drained of the vitality necessary for a more comprehensive victory in the legislature, in the courts and Presidency, in the various forms of media, in the schools, in academia, in the entertainment industry, in rhetoric? Will there remain sufficient vitality to win a war we’ve been losing for more than two centuries? And, given our mounting losses in this larger war, can we really spare any vitality? Paradoxically, we can spare none, yet we must, for Common Core is too dangerous to ignore, and our exertions in the Common Core arena certainly serve the education/propaganda theatres of the larger war as well. There exists another perspective regarding parsing of Conservatism’s vitality to withstand running battles such as Common Core, and prevail overall. It is the “two for one” factor. If we can achieve Conservative majorities in all theatres, legislative, judicial, etc., Common Core and all its brethren will die aborning. Majority Conservative state/national legislatures would have recognized Common Core for the loathsome and dangerous statist plot it is. Common Core would have been squelched long before its adoption by any one of its sponsoring 46 States. More importantly the “next” Common Core and the next, and the next, and there is always a “next,” would simply never arise. Therefore, it is crucial that all possible energy be preserved for Conservative activism in all theatres of our Statist dominated society. Prevailing comprehensively in the larger war will at the same time prevent the necessity of fighting Common Cores II, III, IV, etc., ever again. Yet, Common Core must be fought now, and strenuously. The Common Core crisis is crucial, pivotal. The difficult question to answer, however, is whether we can do what must be done to prevail against Common Core, yet avoid the Pyrrhic dilemma of winning the battle and losing the war.