Common Core: The Last Time Bill Gates Helped America

Twenty years ago, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the legislation intended to save American children from stupidity and the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” became law. Ten years later, Common Core came to the fore. They both failed. Like all liberal ideas, they started with good intentions and government intervention and ended in cheating, lying, and wasted taxpayer money. 

In 2015, the Obama administration replaced No Child Left Behind with the even more Orwellian program named ESSA: the Every Student Succeeds Act. Like its forebear, ESSA’s outcomes were not great. In fact, one of the promising provisions of NCLB, teacher competence — a teacher had to have mastery of the subject he or she taught — was stripped from ESSA. Unqualified teachers “taught” children. Now, in 2020, Bill Gates, the rich man trying to remake the world in his image, has new ideas for America. This time, they involve vaccination, vaccination cards, and universal testing requirements. It’s worth noting whether his old ideas have results worth emulating.

George W. Bush believed that American education was failing. He was not wrong. Student test scores were sliding. There were great disparities between school districts and between states. Like today, poor children were being left behind.

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