Mike Huckabee changes tune on Common Core State Standards

It was one of the big surprises when Common Core State Standards first came out. Fox News commentator and former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, widely regarded as a conservative, backed the new standards.

He even pushed them. For example, the Washington Times reported in June that Huckabee had just written a letter (online here) to “lawmakers in Oklahoma, urging them to stick by the standards.” The Times article lists Huckabee as one of Common Core’s “most fervent supporters.”

Well, facts are coming out, and times are a changing.

Last night, in what may be the highest profile defection so far of a former Common Core supporter, Huckabee told his Fox News audience (video link below) that he is upset with what is happening in the states because of Common Core.

Be sure to listen to comments in the video from Ethan Young, a high school student from Tennessee whose testimony to his local school board went viral on You Tube, and from New York principal Carol Burris, whose guest posts in the Washington Post’s “The Answer Sheet Blog” have also been causing a lot of conversation across the country.

For example, in late October, Burris raised a well-aimed fuss about a Common Core aligned test – for Kindergarteners! Says educator Burris, many children at this tender age are not developmentally ready to do the kinds of things that Common Core related programs are requiring.

What kind of things? You can find that Common Core aligned test that riled principal Burris here.

One of my favorites is question #12, which asks Kindergarteners – 5-year olds – to identify a “subtraction sentence.” Big problem, all of the “formulas” shown (there are no sentences) are ADDITION formulas.

Aside from the fact that the terminology is wrong, expecting 5-year olds to work subtraction problems in the fall of their first year of school is crazy.

And, while it took him some time, I guess Mike Huckabee now agrees.