At an education summit in New Hampshire earlier today, sponsored by an education reporting website and a school choice advocacy group, six GOP presidential hopefuls explained their platform on education. As StateImpact Ohio's Amy Hansen reports, Ohio Gov. John Kasich was there, and used a chunk of his allocated 45-minute time slot to reiterate his support of the Common Core-- though he avoided mentioning the controversial math and English standards for students in grades K-12 by name.
Former CNN journalist and moderator Campbell Brown opened up the Common Core discussion with one question.
"Let me shift gears, to Common Core," said Brown.
"Sure," Kasich said.
"Do you still support it," Brown asked.
"Look, let me tell you the way I see what that 'label' is," said Kasich.
The governor avoided a yes or no answer by giving a brief history of the learning expectations before voicing his support. Roughly five years ago, Ohio joined the majority of the country in adopting the standards.
"I don’t write the standards," Kasich said. "President Obama doesn’t write the standards or the curriculum. We have the high standards as established as where we should go, and we do it only in math and in English, and the bottom line is we have higher standards with school boards writing the curriculum to meet the higher standards with parental advisory."
While several of the Republican presidential candidates have supported the Common Core at one point in time, Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are the only remaining fans.
Common Core has been controversial among some Republicans who see the standards as the federal government exercising control over local schools.