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CEO of Business Leaders for Michigan weak argument against Repeal & Replace

In a letter to the editor, published in the Detroit News, Doug Rothwell, President and CEO of Business Leaders for Michigan shared his opinion on education standards in Michigan. While he does not state it, his letter may have been motivated by a bill pending in the Michigan legislature to repeal and replace Common Core, science, social studies, and assessments with Massachusetts’s pre-Common Core versions.   The bill is strong and quickly passed through the Senate Education Committee without amendment.  Senate Education Chairman Phil Pavlov emphatically urged everyone to “join the fight to kill Common Core.”

In contrast, Rothwell’s argument for retaining Common Core is surprisingly weak.  In fact, Rothwell doesn’t even mention Common Core.  Instead he uses the term “Michigan Standards” and falsely asserts that we “adopted the Michigan Standards and M-STEP assessment in 2014.”

Michigan adopted the Common Core in 2010, just three weeks after its final release without any review of the fiscal impact to our state. The Michigan legislature “paused” Common Core in 2013 but NEVER renamed it “Michigan Standards.”   Rothwell knows the truth.  In August of 2013, he defended Common Core in legislative hearings and wrote an editorial in Bridge Magazine supporting Common Core.  

Rothwell’s rhetorical slight-of-hand in 2016 demonstrates that even he recognizes Common Core is a problem. Mr. Rothwell’s Detroit News editorial asserts that there is no evidence other standards are better than the “Michigan Standards.”

False.

Rothwell should know Massachusetts’s standards are better, his organization helped produce the evidence.  In 2014, the Business Leaders for Michigan published the Economic Competitiveness Benchmarking Report.  Their findings are an unsolicited, evidence-based endorsement of Massachusetts’s education practices.  

Contrary to what Rothwell now states, repealing and replacing Common Core with Massachusetts’s standards and assessments, and making them our own, creates “Michigan Standards” and establishes “Michigan control.”  Mr. Rothwell should be thrilled but instead he allows his imagination to construct a false reality.

It’s time for Mr. Rothwell and all business leaders to accept Senator Pavlov’s invitation to “join the fight to kill Common Core.”  Renaming and retaining Common Core and assessments is a worn out trick and a weak argument.  We’re not falling for it.