The backlash against Common Core detractors has been hard and fast. Remember when Secretary of Education Arne Duncan claimed that “white suburban moms” opposed the nationalized education standards because “their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.” Don’t worry, that’s not actually considered race and/or class warfare. The action of lawmakers in Missouri, however, might take the cake for the most insulting dismissal of Common Core detractors.
The Columbia Daily Tribune’s Rudi Keller reports:
[The Missouri] House Appropriations – Education Committee… Chairman Mike Lair, R-Chillicothe, found $8 to address a pressing problem. The money is to be used “for two rolls of high density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/or black helicopter mind reading and control technology."
On the summary sheet handed out to lawmakers, the money is slated for “tin foil hats” and was tied to an amendment removing language barring the state from accepting federal grants to implement Common Core standards for public schools.
[…]
“Basically, when you deal with conspiracy theorists, you do logic first,” Lair told the committee, noting that he has filed bills to limit how student data is shared and blocking the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education from mandating curriculum or textbooks to local schools.
Yes, that’s right: Anyone who disagrees with Common Core is nothing more than paranoid, tinfoil hat wearers.
In response to Lair’s remarks National Review’s Jim Geraghty had this to say:
Take your tin foil and stick it where the sun don’t shine, Chairman Lair.
There are a lot of objections to Common Core, coming from a lot more corners than the conspiracy theorists. If you don’t like Glenn Beck, there’s plenty of Republican state lawmakers. If they’re too righty for you, there’s skepticism and complaints from the NEA, liberal education-reform groups, teacher complaints about the lesson plans, parents of every political stripe . . . Even if you’re a big fan of Common Core, you have to recognize that arrogant dismissal and mockery like Lair’s actions do nothing to reassure skeptical parents and teachers.
“That is your Republican chairperson for education in Missouri – Republican – calling you a tinfoil hat person if you stand against Common Core,” Glenn said disgusted. “That is really remarkable. Really truly remarkable.”
Common Core offers an incredible opportunity for the federal government to control what our children are learning and how they are learning it, so that generations to come have a very different education than the previous generations.
“You have to control education. You have to control the media. You have to control banking. You have to control labor. You have to control the military,” Glenn concluded. “Gang, they have all of them. And they're now tightening the noose.”
