Education Super Stupid

Bobby Jindal Loses Lawsuit Against His Own Policy. Again.

Written by SK Ashby

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal personally lobbied the state legislature to adopt Common Core education standards but, somewhere along the line, Jindal decided he was going to run for president. With that in mind, the governor launched a campaign against the same policy he lobbied for and, when the state legislature chose not to repeal legislation he asked them to pass, Jindal look his battle to court.

Jindal already lost the battle against his own policy in Louisiana state courts earlier this year. Jindal has now lost his federal lawsuit against Common Core because, thankfully, Judge Shelly Dick has a much better grasp of reality than Jindal or his lawyers do.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune

Countering conservative arguments, Judge Shelly Dick wrote that Common Core is not a curriculum and that federal education laws don't infringe on states' rights. [...]

Dick said the federal government never endorsed Common Core and did not help create it. [...]

The U.S. Department of Education offered financial incentives, in two programs, for states to adopt shared mathematics and English benchmarks. That, in Jindal's view, constituted coercion and federal overreach and violated the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which reserves certain rights to the states. This, too, is a prevailing talking point among conservatives.

Dick, whom President Barack Obama appointed to the bench, disagreed. "The evidence supports the finding that participation in both programs is completely voluntary and not unconstitutionally coercive," she wrote.

The judge is correct, it is a voluntary program. It's a voluntary program that the Louisiana state legislature had no intention of passing until Bobby Jindal urged them to.

The judge is also correct that Common Core was not created by the federal government. Common Core was created in collaboration with state governments and education officials.

Money offered to states under the Race to the Top program may have provided an incentive to adopt it, but it would be quite a stretch to say Jindal was coerced. People who've been coerced don't usually go on to become the driving force and leading cheerleader for a policy they no longer support simply because they're running for president, for Pete's sake.

I'd say Jindal's poll numbers may drop a point or two after this, but his numbers really couldn't get any lower than they already are.