In his weekly "Ask the Governor" spot on the Jimmy Barrett Show on WRVA in Richmond, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell didn't mince words when asked about whether his state would buy into the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). I don't want to have a federal bureaucracy monitoring whether or not we are having the right programs in our schools. [snip] The bottom line is we don't need the federal government with the Common Core telling us how to run our schools in Virginia. We'll use our own system which is very good. It's empirically tested. Many critics of the CCSS say the Department of Education has usurped the rights of individual states by setting up an offer which the states find hard to refuse. Race to the Top, the DoED's competitive grants program, asks states to apply then rates them on a 500 point scale. 70 of those points include agreeing to change over to the Common Core. Even if they didn't win funds from RTTP, all but two states have chosen to implement CCSS. ...(Read Full Post)