Common Core standards debate heats up over payments by John Birch group

The clamor over nationwide K-12 academic standards adopted by Wisconsin and discussed at four recent statewide hearings intensified this week with news that several out-of-state speakers critical of the standards received compensation through an arm of the conservative John Birch Society.

Leaders of the American Opinion Foundation, an independent nonprofit associated with the Wisconsin-based society, say they paid for about $5,500 worth of travel expenses for five Common Core State Standards critics to speak at the hearings in Fond du Lac, Eau Claire and Wausau this month. They said local citizens raised the money.

The latest select Assembly and Senate committees to re-examine the standards were spearheaded by Republicans, but many saw them as agenda-driven from the start because the highest-ranking education lawmakers in the state — Senate Education Chair Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) and Assembly Education Chair Steve Kestell (R-Elkhart Lake) — declined to participate.

One Milwaukee lawmaker resigned from the Assembly’s review panel this week, calling the hearing process “deeply biased.”

“I cannot in good conscience sit on a committee that has involved the most extreme national interest groups on education in planning and executing official Legislative hearings,” Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) wrote in a resignation letter to chairmen of the Senate and Assembly Common Core review panels.