Political Quotes

“This amendment is not necessary because there is no prohibition against people withdrawing from Common Core. I think we need to say a few things about Common Core. It is not a national or a Federal initiative. It is State led. States develop the Common Core standards through the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association. The U.S. Department of Education did not participate in that. The administration does not coerce States into adopting Common Core. In fact, States have received waivers under NCLB and have not adopted Common Core, like my home State of Virginia. In Virginia, our State system of higher education certified that when a child is proficient under our standards of learning, they could enter public universities without the needed remediation. Those standards were okay, not the Common Core. Frankly, we need those kinds of standards, college and career-ready, because you want people, when they graduate from high school, to be able to go to college without remediation. That is not a high bar, and we want to make sure that whatever happens to this amendment, we are not exempting States from meaningful standards. I reserve the balance of my time. {time} 2115”