When former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush spoke about education policy at a summit in Tallahassee, Fla., on Tuesday, there was one well-known phrase he did not utter.
“Common Core.”
Bush, now a likely Republican candidate for president, has put education policy at the center of his legacy as governor and his post-political nonprofit work. During a presidential campaign, he would likely focus on education policy as a socioeconomic equalizer.
But Bush has also supported the state-devised academic standards known as Common Core, which have become a point of contention among many conservative Republicans and could weigh Bush down in a Republican primary contest.
Although Bush has defended the standards in the past, he tried out a new tack Tuesday and didn’t mention them at all, focusing instead on areas of education in which he thinks the federal government should not be involved.
“The simple role for the federal government is to require an annual test, just for starters,” Bush said. “I think that should be the only mandate that they have.”
“But beyond that,” he added, “I think it has to be pretty clear that the federal government’s role ought to be to enhance reform at the local and state level, not to impose it. Because that doesn’t work.”
Bush also said there should be strict “limits” to the federal government’s role in education, including as it relates to standards.
“They shouldn’t coerce people into taking a certain type of test, they shouldn’t mandate or require a certain type of content or curriculum or standards,” Bush said. “There should be none of that.”
Bush’s spokeswoman Kristy Campbell confirmed that this does not mean Bush has changed his position on Common Core, a set of federally incentivized standards developed in collaboration with the states.
“He doesn’t support the federal government imposing national standards,” Campbell said. “Common Core was a project of the states.”
If Bush did not talk Tuesday about Common Core, he did acknowledge another area of public interest: his departure from his education foundation. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has since taken up the reins.
“It breaks my heart that I’m not involved in it,” Bush said, “but I’m on a new mission.”
That mission almost certainly involves a bid for the presidency.
If Tuesday’s remarks are any indication, Bush will use education policy as an opportunity on the campaign trail to push back against not only federal involvement in education but also teacher unions.
On Tuesday, Bush voiced his strong opposition to teacher unions — an issue that will likely feature prominently in a Republican presidential primary should Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker run for president. Walker is well know among Republicans for having taken on teacher unions in Wisconsin and overcoming a recall effort.
“It is wrong to focus on the economic interest of the adults when it means that children are being held back,” Bush said of the unions. “We should have this be ultimately a customized learning experience all across this country, where the social commitment is made to parents on behalf of their children and not so much to protect government-run unionized politicized monopolies.”
Bush acknowledged that this comment would likely cause a stir.
“That’ll light up the Twitter,” he laughed. “In the Twitter universe there are some heads exploding right now. I can feel it.”
His remarks Tuesday came as Bush is in the early stages of sketching out his policy platform for a likely presidential bid, a rollout that began last week with an economic address in Detroit.
While in Florida on Tuesday, Bush also hosted a fundraiser for his political committee, Right To Rise, and met with Gov. Rick Scott.
