Education

Here’s Why Common Core And ‘No Child Left Behind’ Didn’t Work, According To Betsy DeVos

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Rob Shimshock Education Reporter
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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos claims Common Core and the “No Child Left Behind” act did not work, in a Tuesday speech.

DeVos bashed what she viewed as fruitless government spending and encouraged putting power back in the hands of parents and teachers, in a speech given at the American Enterprise Institute.

The fact is the United States spends more per pupil than most other developed countries, many of which perform better than us in the same surveys,” DeVos said, citing the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). This assessment internationally ranked the United States 23rd, 25th, and 40th for reading, science, and math, respectively.

“Universal proficiency, touted at the law’s passage, was not achieved,” said DeVos, discussing “No Child Left Behind.” “As states and districts scrambled to avoid the law’s sanctions and maintain their federal funding, some resorted to focusing specifically on math and reading at the expense of other subjects. Others simply inflated scores or lowered standards.”

DeVos also addressed former President Barack Obama’s administration’s incentivizing state Common Core adoptions. (RELATED: Common Core Faces Even More Resistance With Trump’s Second-In-Command Education Guy)

Unsurprisingly, nearly every state accepted Common Core standards and applied for hundreds of millions of dollars in ‘Race to the Top’ funds,” said DeVos. “But despite this change, the United States’ PISA performance did not improve in reading and science, and it dropped in math from 2012 to 2015.”

“I agree – and have always agreed – with President Trump on this: ‘Common Core is a disaster.’ And at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead,” she added.

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