Common Core is just a scheme for publishing companies to make a lot of money, an educational publishing executive who supposedly “hates kids” apparently revealed on the latest hidden camera sting from muckraker James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas crew .
The executive in question who claimed that “it’s all about the money” was fired today by her employer once the footage surfaced, according to the Daily Mail .
The K-12 Common Core educational standards are in use in about 40 states. Most GOP presidential candidates oppose the federal one-size-fits-all criteria, with the exception of Jeb Bush, and have vowed to eliminate them in favor of local curriculum control. Their Democrat counterparts support Common Core.
On the video, the sales manager for Houghton Mifflin apparently makes her feelings evident about Common Core.
“You don’t think that the educational publishing companies are in it for education, do you? No, they’re in it for the money.”
She also admitted in conversation caught on hidden camera that she “hates kids” and she is just “in it to sell books.”
“In the video, [the account manager] says textbook publishers can’t sell anything unless it’s aligned to the Common Core standards,” The Hill added .
In dramatic language, the Project Veritas website summarized the video content.
“In this new video, Project Veritas journalists visit with America’s top textbook publishing companies, the moneymakers of Common Core, in an effort to expose how crony capitalism is taking over America’s educational system. Shockingly, our journalists caught a publishing executive mocking her own immoral behavior and then laughing about it on hidden camera.. In upcoming videos in this series, we’ll continue to expose how taxpayer dollars are used with little accountability to enrich the major book publishing companies.”
Watch the video below (the entire raw footage has yet to be released) and draw your own conclusions.
The CEO of Houghton Mifflin released a statement today distancing the company from remarks by the woman on the video.
“Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is as appalled by these comments as we expect readers will be. These statements in no way reflect the views of HMH and the commitment of our over 4,000 employees who dedicate their lives to serving teachers and students every day. The individual who made these comments is a former employee who was with HMH for less than a year.”
The former Houghton Mifflin employee told the Washington Post that her comments were taken out of context and completely misconstrued. “She believes that Common Core is a good thing for children because it creates consistent academic expectations across the country,” and she was just joking about the “hating kids” thing, the Post reported.
Pearson, another educational publisher, also condemned the comments made in the O’Keefe video.
If the video is accurate, when the conversation turned to Donald Trump’s description of Common Core as a “disaster” (which is one of the GOP front-runner’s favorite words), the exec seemed to play the race card. She also threw some shade on home schooling parents.
Hopefully all pres candidates bring this video up, but one promised to. @realdonaldtrump https://t.co/HepMgoR9D3 pic.twitter.com/emRzpxwrX5
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) January 12, 2016
Although the controversial O’Keefe has plenty of detractors for his particular brand of journalism, his Project Veritas team, which mostly specializes in undercover videos, has done its share of investigative reporting into corrupt or fraudulent government practices (or rampant political correctness on campus), investigative work which seems to be generally falling out of favor in the mainstream or legacy media. News-gathering organizations used to regularly employ techniques such as hidden camera research in their reportage.
Anyone who’s followed Common Core had already deduced this news or has been #DenyingTheObvious , to coin a phrase. https://t.co/81aRQFRhV9
— Bob Beasley (@13013B) January 13, 2016
You may recall that a prior O’Keefe video showed someone wearing an Osama bin Laden mask could walk across the southern border undetected, and also how a man wearing an ISIS uniform could cross by boat from Canada to the U.S. without being stopped.
In 2010, the conservative activist pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for a stunt at ex-U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans.
Is Common Core being used in the school system in your area?
[Photo by Sue Ogrocki/AP]