Common Core certainly needs public relations after recent revelations, but should such PR spin be funded by tax dollars?

Joy Pullmann of the Washington Examiner reports.

The Common Core bait-and-switch, funded by your taxes

A key argument for the Common Core national curriculum and testing mandates is the promise that they are “voluntary” and “state-led,” in the words of Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Odd, then, that the feds are spending at least $9.9 million for Common Core public relations, as my recent investigation showed.

Federal tax dollars for this purpose have been channeled, like federal control of education, through the two organizations creating national Common Core tests to replace most state tests in 2014–15.

The federal government has provided four years of operating funds—$330 million total—for national testing groups called Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Their preliminary budgets allotted almost $5.5 million in taxpayer dollars to convince taxpayers their money has been well spent and should continue once the federal funds dry up in September 2014. Later documents show the two groups have upped that amount to at least $9.9 million.

PARCC is spending much of its promo money training pro-Common Core teachers to spread support. Its Educator Leader Cadre “members are in a great position to push out messages and materials and to ensure benefit from the widest possible circulation,” a PARCC document says. “They all have e-mail lists of colleagues and ideally are part of broader professional networks.”

Common Core and its tests “have become objects of well-organized and effective political opposition,” a December request for proposals from Smarter Balanced says. It aims to remedy that with a $5.2 million full-court communications press this year. Among other things, it wants materials targeted to key lawmakers before votes and even canned op-eds and webpages that bureaucrats can publish and distribute under their own names.

The testing organizations have accelerated their federally sponsored public relations push just as parents and teachers across the country have begun objecting to Common Core and pressuring their representatives to withdraw.