An undercover sting of Common Core book publishers revealed insiders who “hate kids” and push a “bulls–t” system to “sell books.”
Conservative activist James O’Keefe of Project Veritas released video on Tuesday of a New York City teacher and a former accounts manager at publisher Houghton Mifflin who describe the system as a giant money grab.
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“You don’t think that the educational publishing companies are in it for the education, do you?” said Dianne Barrow, an ex-Houghton Mifflin employee, the Hill reported. “No, they’re in it for the money.”
When O’Keefe tries to tell Barrow she seems like a woman who is “in it for the kids” she throws her head back, cackles, and says, “I hate kids. … I’m in it to sell books. Don’t even kid yourself for a heartbeat.”
Project Veritas also taped a Brooklyn, New York, school teacher identified as Jodi Cohen talking about Common Core standards, which are used in more than 40 states.
“It’s a joke. … It’s bulls–t. The thing is, what they do is they create some new f–king system that f–king sucks to sell more books, and then we have to learn something new with the students,” Cohen said, the Daily Mail reported Monday.
O’Keefe told the newspaper he “hopes and prays” Common Core advocates say his videos are isolated incidents because he has more to release.
“This video provides confirmation that Common Core is broken, rotten and corrupt – including the textbook publishers, government education officials and the politicians who should be held accountable for enabling this system in the first place,” O’Keefe said.
Linda Zecher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s CEO, told the newspaper that Barrow, who worked for the company for less than one year, does not represent 4,000 employees who “dedicate their lives to serving teachers and students every day.”
Critics of Common Core say the system unnecessarily makes math problems complicated, erroneously applies a “one-size-fits-all” to a complex problem, and robs parents of education choices.
“Common Core has to be ended. It’s a disaster,” Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said July 18, 2015, at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. “It’s a way of taking care of the people in Washington that, frankly, I don’t even think they give a damn about education, half of them.”
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