Every student in American schools is taught that the Constitution is the law of the land. So, why doesn’t the federal government understand this?

The Department of Education has been working to institute a national common core on what is taught in schools around the country. This national common core usurps a state’s right to determine how its citizens are educated and instead gives the power to the federal government to dictate to the states what, when and how education will be done in the states.

This federal takeover of states’ control over their own education systems, something that the founding fathers left in states control and not the federal governments, is not in accordance with the constitution. The Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” For the federal government to try to establish national regulations that override states prerogatives is unconstitutional.

Governor Mike Pence of Indiana said of legislation he signed into law that changed the current system, “I believe our students are best served when decisions about education are made at the state and local level, by signing this legislation, Indiana has taken an important step forward in developing academic standards that are written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers, and are uncommonly high, and I commend members of the General Assembly for their support.”

Pence has reacted to those in his state that have shared their discontent with common core and all the problems that have arisen from the implementation of the program. Indiana is just one of many states that are moving away from the common core system to one that is developed on the local level and best serves the children of that state.

Many parents have displayed their discontent with the common core, voicing how unhappy they are with their children being taught the way that common core mandates they should be. One parent used Facebook to vent his distress about the standards saying that if he were to use the methods his child was being taught at his employment then it would have resulted in termination.

Children should be taught as if we are preparing them for the workforce and nothing less than that. With the current system, they are not being prepared for their futures and states’ rights to determine what is needed to prepare the children of their state for the workforce and educate their own have been taken away.

There is no value to education in the United States by implementing a federal common core. The only thing it adds to education is more cost and more bureaucracy. Each state is still unique and the population of that state has unique needs – it is at that local level that education standards should be developed. Ask yourself this: has education in the United States improved since 1979 when The Department of Education was expanded and became a cabinet level department?