Why Jeb Bush's Greatest Political Achievement Could Sink a White House Run

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/jeb-bush-biggest-nightmare-common-core



Conservative activists may hate Common Core math and English standards, but the former Florida governor remains an unrepentant backer.

Why Jeb Bush's Greatest Political Achievement Could Sink a White House Run
—By Tim Murphy
| Fri Apr. 18, 2014 3:00 AM PDT

I met Jeb Bush's biggest nightmare during a breakout session at March's Conservative Political Action Conference held outside of DC. In a side room, Phyllis Schlafly, the octogenarian den mother of the religious right, was explaining why attendees should be afraid of a set of national educational standards, little noticed by the national political press, called Common Core. The standards are arguably Bush's biggest political legacy. They are also the source of a rising tide of activism on the political right. One after another, conservative activists in the standing-room-only audience stood up to express their alarm. "If you are a white male boy—God forbid you're Jewish!—you're being targeted and it's very scary," fretted a woman from Texas. "Very scary."

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In recent weeks, Bush—the former governor of Florida, brother of the 43rd president, and son of the 41st—has emerged as the Republican Party's presidential sleeper of the moment, a political heavyweight who could commandeer the nervous donor class, lure Latino voters back to the GOP, and stand toe-to-toe with Hillary Clinton.

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But if Bush runs, he'll have to contend with an obstacle every bit as daunting as his last name—Common Core. His educational nonprofit, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, has been a leading supporter of Common Core, and he has recently joined another group, Conservatives for Higher Standards, to defend the standards against what he calls an "avalanche" of opposition. If that avalanche grows any bigger, it threatens to block any path Bush may have to becoming the Republican Party's 2016 standard-bearer.

Adopted five years ago by 45 states, the guidelines are designed to provide a modicum of standardization across the country, so that a child in Idaho and a child in Florida might reasonably be expected to learn the same things at the same times. From the start, the standards were derided by some conservatives for the expenses they would bring, or as a power grab that would erode local control, water down existing state curricula, or, yes, even brainwash children with leftist material. But it's only in the last two years, as students have begun to take the Core-compliant standardized tests, that parents—and in turn, politicians and key right-leaning news outlets—have begun to take note.