Three years ago, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush co-wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal offering a full-throated endorsement of a new education initiative developed by states, governors and a handful of nonprofit organizations to try to improve student achievement nationwide.
The piece, “The case for Common Core education standards,” touted the new standards as voluntary but necessary benchmarks, developed by states, that would be consistent across the country and key to improving student performance.
“The Common Core State Standards are an example of states recognizing a problem, then working together, sharing what works and what doesn’t,” Bush concluded.
Three years later, Bush’s view on Common Core has not shifted. But the political landscape has.
The two words together have become a conservative rallying cry against federal government interference in education, although states are incentivized with government money to adopt the standards, not required to do so.
In an interview last month, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a likely contender for the presidency in 2016, made plain his opposition to the standards and predicted the issue could be damaging to any Republican who supports them.
“A Republican candidate out there … that’s for Common Core probably doesn’t have much chance of winning in a Republican primary,” Paul told Breitbart News.
But Bush, who has admitted he is considering a presidential bid, appears unburdened by such dire predictions.
In a speech Thursday to an annual meeting of his Foundation for Excellence in Education, Bush did not shy from the topic, calling the discourse over Common Core “troubling.”
“I respect those who have weighed in on all sides of this issue. Nobody in this debate has a bad motive,” Bush said. “But let’s take a step back from this debate for a second.
“Even if we don’t all agree on Common Core, there are more important principles for us to agree on,” he added.
Bush then spent most of his speech talking about other tenets of education reform, including performance-based pay for teachers and school choice.
Allies of Bush said the former governor’s toned-down Common Core message was no pivot.
“His speech today is exactly what he’s been saying for a while,” said one party strategist with ties to Bush. “Common Core is a slim slice of his education reform agenda. This is not something that has ever been a top focus.”
But the shift in rhetoric was an early look of what Americans might expect to see of Bush in a Republican primary: continued support for Common Core, but an eagerness to change the subject.
If Bush won’t be focusing on Common Core, other potential Republican presidential candidates will be. Indeed, they already are.
In March, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a measure to remove his state from Common Core, predicting that other states would follow suit. However, the standards Indiana adopted instead bear striking similarities to Common Core.
In July, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recommended that the state legislature repeal the standards and replace them with some unique to Wisconsin.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal sued the federal government over Common Core earlier this year, although his state still uses the standards. The case has not been decided.
And no less than the Republican National Committee itself rejected Common Core in a resolution last year as “an inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children so they will conform to a preconceived ‘normal.’ ”
A few potential Republican candidates have taken a more nuanced stance. Texas Gov. Rick Perry said during a swing through Iowa in August that Texas rejected Common Core because the state wanted to implement higher standards, an approach in line with Bush’s view of Common Core as a baseline.
“If you want Washington, if you want to implement their standards, that’s your call,” Perry said, according to a local report. “In Texas we had higher standards.” Texas is one of four states that rejected the Common Core standards outright.
Meanwhile, some Republican candidates have been candidly supportive of the standards, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. During remarks last year, Christie criticized Republicans opposed to Common Core for having a “knee-jerk” response to the standards because President Obama supports them.
At the Republican Governors Association meeting in Florida this week, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, another potential presidential candidate, echoed that sentiment.
“I do think we have to have good standards. I don’t see that this is ‘Obamacore,’” Kasich said, according to Yahoo News. “The idea that kids in Iowa, kids in California, kids in Ohio, there ought to be a higher level of achievement? I’m completely for that. I think it makes sense. … It is purely local control.”
Still, Bush tends to get the most attention for his support of the standards, because education reform has long been central to his policy platform.
And he has long known the backlash was coming.
“My guess is there’s going to be a lot of people running for cover,” Bush said during an education summit in Orlando in 2012, “and they’re going to be running fast.”
So far, Bush isn’t one of them. But he’s not running toward it, either.
