Oregon Needs Change–and Someone to Fight Common Core!
As a lifelong resident of the beautiful yet politically stupid state of Oregon I feel I’ve earned the right to poke at the powers that be and even call the Governor out on his failed policies.
Our Cover Oregon boondoggle (our Obamacare health exchange), the Columbia River Crossing Boondoggle and many, many other boondoggles have Governor John Kitzhaber’s name all over them.
My focus is, as always, Common Core. Kitzhaber is always the first to sign on to lame policy changes and government mandates from the feds and always last to let go. Or, more accurately, he never lets go.
Remember the School to Work push in the 90s? The Outcomes Based Education that the congress refused to fund because it was so bad? Well, Oregon probably remembers it because even though many of us were under a rock and not paying attention, it turns out that Oregon has been doing Outcomes Based Education (OBE) since 1994, or thereabouts.
Common Core is OBE. And while many states are jumping on the new bandwagon to “better” their education system, many are jumping ship because they see how bad it really is. Even though Oregon has been doing OBE for 20 years parents are seeing a difference with the Common Core because it’s actually dumber than the previous OBE.
And guess what number Oregon is ranked in the education system? Well, it wavers between 48th and 49th. How’s that OBE working out for us? It’s not.
Anyone with a brain does have to wonder if the suspected goal of a “guaranteed voter” group who has been brainwashed into believing that Democrats are the saviors of Oregon and “sustainability as dogma” are the real end goal then Oregon was a pilot and has shown it to work.
I will propose, though, that there are many more people in Oregon with common sense who know that our Democratic regime has done a disservice to our once profitable state. The problem is that there are two counties in Oregon that are filled with the progressive leaning Democrats and those two counties have the most electoral votes.
This year we have a chance to change all of this. Democrats are seeing that our little king in the Governor’s Office is making poor decisions to guide our state and is guiding it to ruin. Our failed Cover Oregon project that has cost us millions, the fact that our kids are leaving Oregon after they graduate to find jobs because all of ours are gone and now trying to dumb our kids down to the point of not being able to survive in the real world are all great reasons to get rid of Governor Kitzhaber.
He has had 12 years to do something in this state that would benefit us. That’s over half of the time that we’ve been doing
Outcomes Based Education. Over half of the time that we have been ranked 48th in education he was at the helm of the ship. If he wins another term it will be historic. Sixteen years dedicated to what he thinks is “progress.” He is proud of what he’s done. He admits no fault.
I say we have an opportunity to do something even more historic. For the first time in almost 30 years we could vote for another candidate. A candidate who may not have the “correct” letter behind his name in some peoples opinion, but a candidate who will at the very least, return decision making for schools back to the local level and take our education system back from the educrats and listen to teachers instead of bypassing them for the advice of a shoe making corporation.
Is that worth a vote? Yes. And that is why I will be encouraging everyone I know who cares about the education system to vote for Dennis Richardson.
