Sen. Ted Cruz has built much of his national brand around advocating to repeal Obamacare, but he is lately pushing for the repeal of another measure, too.
“Federal govt has no business sticking its nose in education,” the Texas Republican tweeted Monday during a swing through New Hampshire, a key presidential primary state. “We need to repeal every word of Common Core!”
Cruz has used the same language before in public remarks. During a speech to a Club For Growth meeting in Florida last month, Cruz said: “We should repeal every word of Common Core. We should get the federal government out of the business of curriculum.”
It’s not surprising that Cruz would oppose the Common Core education standards, which have become a hot-button issue among conservatives who fear federal encroachment into education. But what exactly would repealing Common Core look like? And could the federal government, which did not create it, repeal it?
Common Core is a set of education standards adopted voluntarily by states, but incentivized by federal Race To The Top dollars for those states that opt in. The standards were crafted in collaboration by the bipartisan National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Achieve, an education consulting firm.
However, some Republican presidential hopefuls, including Cruz, have mischaracterized Common Core as dictating the precise curriculum for students to follow, down to the techniques students should use to solve math problems.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler described Common Core as the “federally created curriculum that the state’s ‘Race to the Top’ grants are tied to.”
“So if the state does not adopt the standards, it gives up the grant money,” Tyler said. “But since the federal government created this mess, there should be a way to undo it.”
Tyler pointed to a bill by Sen. David Vitter, of which Cruz is a co-sponsor, that would seek to undercut Common Core by prohibiting “the federal government from mandating that states adopt specific academic standards, including the Common Core standards, curriculum, or assessments,” according to a recent release by Vitter’s office.
“Additionally, this legislation would allow states that do not accept these standards to continue to qualify for federal grants and waivers currently limited to states that are in compliance with the standards,” the release read.
It’s not known how many states might opt out of Common Core if the same funding were offered across the board. Currently, 43 states and the District of Columbia conform to the standards. Indiana last year drew attention by withdrawing from Common Core after initially opting in.
Cruz is not the only Republican candidate for president to use this rhetoric, but he is the most high-profile. In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said, “We must repeal Common Core.”
However, many likely Republican candidates for president have called for states to pull out of Common Core. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker last year called on his state legislature “to repeal Common Core and replace it with standards set by people in Wisconsin.” Others, such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, have defended it.
