Why should you expect a federal department to directly do something?

We have the DOE so that the propaganda will be uniform across the country:-)

I hate to be dishonest, but in this case, it's politics, so, meh...

If we get a Republican into the WH in 2016, high on the agenda IMO should be to abolish the Department of Education, either just before or just after the EPA...but soon...

The dishonest part is: I wouldn't say it during the campaign...OMG, I'd bet you'd hear the word "racism"...

Actually, it does. The military academies, and some K-12 schools overseas for military dependents and embassy children.

Because the Supreme Court has a bunch of New Dealers who haven't read the explanations of the Constitution in the Federalist Papers.

Ahhh, now there is the crux of the problem... Why...

We are watching the degeneration of a word, richrobinson. "Damned" used to mean that your soul was going to Hell; it was a dire word to use. Now it means you stubbed your toe.

We will see the day when "racist" becomes a mild explicative, unfettered from its origin. We will hear talk of someones 'racist car' that broke down on the way to work or a 'racist strawberry' that was mushy, down at the bottom of the basket.

Perhaps, instead of resisting this degeneration, we should apply our verbal jujitsu in the direction of the momentum and help it along.

Jan, has a racist pile of twigs to dispose of this morning

I think it became meaningless to thinking, i.e., rational people awhile ago, and now it's becoming so for even those people who don't think quite so deeply.

I'm sure there have been other formerly "hostile" words that have similarly lost their "automatic" negative connotations in recent times, from overuse or use in ridiculous, clearly inapplicable, situations.

But they escape me at the moment. Anyone else?

As far as "black leaders" denouncing the trend, leave out the qualifier "on the left", and I think some have...

A 'master' over the masses appointed by a chosen one.

I love when you get fired up, Zen.
Apparently, he thinks he's the sole person who has any say in what our children are indoctrinated with. And knows what a racist is.
NOT!!!!!

And it's been awhile since I've heard the "argument" but within the past few years someone put out there that "blacks cannot be racist", period. Ah, it's coming back to me now: in order to be racist, you have to have power and be part of the power elite, and since, by definition, blacks have no power, ergo, that can't be racist. So even if you're black and use what some of us more common folk might consider "racial epithets", you're still not a racist. Or, if you're black and repeatedly use the "N" word in a rap "song", and also refer to black women as "ho's"...nope, still not racist.

Logically, then, I guess those poor, powerless white folk in the hoods burning crosses (and churches) down South couldn't be racists either?

Oh, wait, did I use the racist term "logic".? Sorry...

Newspeak lives.

OMFG! The doors on both of our Prius cars auto-lock! Who would have thought THEY could be racist!!!!?

Here in southern Florida, most stores and offices (and phone messages) have both English and Spanish, and some even add Creole. Official documents have all three. Some places have dispensed with English altogether. This is the natural process of evolution. The government can mandate that schools must teach in English only, but it can't force people to actually speak only English.

Legislating that all children must master the same scholastic program is a last-ditch effort to homogenize the population and make the herd easier to control. What we're really seeing is a battle of memes.

The marvel is that kids already have a common core of knowledge and culture through the Internet and their music and entertainments. Just look at how values can be changed by making brainiacs heroes, like NUMB3RS and Big Bang Theory, where math and geeks are cool. It's kids who are the self-taught computer experts anymore. Kids can figure things out for themselves, like the Hole-in-the-Wall project, http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_sh... and many excellent on-line learning programs. It's the government's test authors who are the real racists.

Better yet draw a bullseye.

Yes, and it makes my day when yet another State drops it. My guess is the original idea came from Bill Ayers, after an approving screening of "The Killing Fields"...

Another poster recently viewed it as part of or at least inspired by "UN Agenda 21"...ah, but that's silly conspiracy thinking (not to mention "racist" to the core [sorry ;-( ])...

Well. I''m never 100% sure when it comes to politics, but I think States can and have opted out of Common Core through their State legislatures. I think quite a few. Too busy to Google at the moment.

As this I'm even a little more more sure of: the "stick" against the States used to be you'd lose your precious and significant "Federal Funds" for your schools if your State opted out of Common Core, but I think the new Republican majority is trying to change that. Whether they cam, I don't know. (Maybe if they attach it to a bill giving Putin all of our uranium...)...

As a former Detroiter who returns there a lot and still has family there, I can tell you for sure that there are such things as "charter schools" in Michigan, which are organized by private organizations but are funded with public school funds. They don't get "everything", like buses, school lunches...but they get enough to compete, and they are quite successful. To the point of "racism", there are many of these school within Detroit itself (my sister teaches in one) started by black parents and organizations, and they are doing quite well in terms of drop-out rates, students going on to college, etc., in particular vs. the Detroit Public School system. And no, most people I've talked to associated with those schools, including my sister, staunchly oppose Common Core.

Is that more or less than the percent that serve time in jail?