The Common Core gang in 1996 gathered a cozy group of rich big businessmen, six governors, and a few other politicians and founded an organization called Achieve, which started implementation of Common Core in 13 states. A national curriculum was still their goal, and so the Common Core advocates bypassed most elected officials, went straight to each state department of education, and by 2009, had persuaded 35 states to align their curriculums with Common Core. By 2011, 45 states signed up even though the final standards were not yet available and they had never been field tested.
Careful to skirt the laws barring federal control of curriculum, Education Secretary Arne Duncan used federal funds to bait the states to sign up with Common Core by offering grants from the federally funded Race to the Top program. The Common Core promoters then used the clever device of copyrighting the standards by non-government organizations, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. That enables Common Core advocates to force uniform national standards while claiming they do not violate the laws prohibiting federal control of curriculum. States that sign on to Common Core may not change or modify the standards. The license agreement that states must sign in order to use Common Core States: National Governor’s Association and the Council of State School Offices “shall be acknowledged as the sole owners and developers of the Common Core State Standards."
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