'My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry,' Louis C.K. tweeted this week. Common Core becomes a punch line

If you’ve lost Louis C.K. and Chuck Norris, have you lost America?

Both the acerbic comedian and the action star-turned-activist have come down hard on the Common Core academic standards, which were once widely hailed as a bipartisan success story but are now drawing fire from liberals and conservatives alike.


The debate over the standards has roiled political campaigns and dominated education policy debates for more than a year. Now it’s rocketing into pop culture — and opponents hope that will prove a tipping point.

The latest flash point came this week when Louis C.K. tweeted to his 3.3 million followers: “My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks standardized testing and common core!” He followed that with several pictures of third-grade math problems he deemed incomprehensible or just plain dumb. Within a day, his original protest had been re-tweeted more than 7,000 times. He kept going Thursday evening, tweeting: “Kids teachers parents are vocally suffering. Doesnt that matter? listen to them. Adapt and slow down CCSS. Cool it with the testing.”

( Also on POLITICO: Louis C.K. tweets again)

The tweets point to a serious liability for the Common Core. Proponents desperately want to focus attention on the goal of raising academic standards and preparing American students to compete in a global economy. But parents want to talk about their children sobbing over nonsensical homework and vomiting from test-day jitters — and those are the stories that resonate, especially on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert picked up on all that social media angst and amplified it with a segment a few weeks ago that ridiculed befuddling math questions. Judy Blume, Maya Angelou and Matt Damon have also weighed in with critiques on standardized testing.

The populist attack on Common Core isn’t always fair: Some of the most widely mocked examples of so-called Common Core math were featured in textbooks and used in classrooms long before the standards were introduced. The blame for some of the confusing assignments rests on individual teachers, not the standards, which lay out what children should learn in each grade but don’t presume to dictate lesson plans or homework. And high-stakes testing was introduced long before the Common Core — and is stressful for some kids regardless of what the exams cover.

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Opposition activist Jim Stergios says he would prefer to focus on more sober-minded critiques of the “mediocre quality, dubious legality and outsized costs” of the Common Core. But he can’t say he’s displeased that complaints about the standards have become a pop culture meme.

“You know that discomfort and even outright opposition has reached a critical mass when the core becomes a frequent punch line in the repertoire of late-night comedians,” said Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a Boston think tank.

And supporters acknowledge, with considerable frustration, that the campaign is taking a toll.

“What harms the cause for improving education in this country is the attempt by the opposition and the media, who should know better, to perpetuate these misunderstandings, until eventually people think they are truths, ”said Cheryl Oldham, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

( Also on POLITICO: Full education policy coverage)

Take, for instance, the Common Core exams.

They were introduced with great fanfare as the next generation of standardized tests. They require students to write more, to analyze complex texts and, in some cases, to perform hands-on experiments in the classroom. Backers hoped parents would embrace them as far more challenging and meaningful than the traditional fill-in-the-bubble multiple choice.

But because of all those new components, the exams are longer than many states’ former assessments. They’re taken on computers, which this spring have proved vulnerable to crashes, server outages and even cyberterrorism.

Common Core exams are graded on a far tougher curve, leading to huge failure rates in states that adopted them last year. And to top it all off, the recent tests given to students in New York featured questions studded with brand names like Nike and iPod, raising concerns about commercialization.

( Also on POLITICO: Louis C.K. hits Common Core)

Any parents who saw benefits in the new exams were swiftly drowned out by the chorus of protests on social media.

By the tens of thousands, parents have refused to let their children take the tests. They have taken to social media to explain why. And their fury has seeped into pop culture.

Colbert aired a series of clips of parents explaining how the tests had rattled and stressed their children. His wry conclusion: “Common Core testing is preparing students for what they’ll face as adults — pointless stress and confusion.”

The stress of standardized testing also caught the attention of more than 120 authors and illustrators of children’s literature, who last fall issued a public letter to President Barack Obama last fall expressing alarm at the administration’s education reform agenda. “Our public school students spend far too much time preparing for reading tests and too little time curling up with books that fire their imaginations,” they wrote.

Among the signatories: beloved and widely respected authors such as Angelou, Blume and Jules Feiffer.

Actor Damon has taken on the anti-testing crusade, too. Common Core foes have hailed his 2011 speech to a pro-public school rally, in which he called for teachers to have more autonomy to run their classrooms as they see fit. To rousing cheers, Damon listed the qualities that he said had fueled his success and brought him the most joy in life: imagination, curiosity, a passion for writing, a love of learning. “None of these qualities,” he said, “can be tested.”

Hollywood elites aren’t always welcome in grassroots campaigns, but many Common Core opponents have rushed to embrace Damon, Colbert and especially Louis C.K., citing their involvement as proof that concerns about the new standards are resonating far beyond the tea party groups that have been among the reform effort’s most aggressive and visible foes.

It’s one thing to have Norris assert that the standards are being used by “the feds … to usurp power over public schools and influence young American minds.” Or for Glenn Beck to label the Common Core an “insidious menace” that opened the door to “leftist indoctrination.”

It’s another thing entirely to have a popular comedian — a comedian who once, in all sincerity, declared Obama his personal hero — tell the world the Common Core is making his children cry.

“There has been a calculated campaign, led by [Education] Secretary Arne Duncan, asserting that only extremists question the Common Core and the testing based on it,” said education historian Diane Ravitch, a leading voice challenging the standards. “Strong statements by celebrities like Louis C.K., Matt Damon, Judy Blume and Maya Angelou undermine that false narrative.”

So far, the opposition hasn’t overturned the Common Core in any state other than Indiana. But at least 11 states have backed out of commitments to use shared Common Core assessments. And the movement to scrap the standards altogether remains very much alive in several states, including South Carolina, Missouri and Louisiana, where Gov. Bobby Jindal recently recanted his previous support and urged the Legislature to reject the Common Core.

Common Core proponents have plenty of money to fight back. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent nearly $200 million so far to develop and promote the standards, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable have poured in resources, as well. They have the support of the Obama administration and the national teachers unions, which have raised concerns about how the standards are implemented in practice, but continue to support them in principle.

The one thing they’re missing: star wattage.

Former pro basketball player Isiah Thomas wrote a piece for the Huffington Post late last year praising the standards for raising academic expectations. And both the Eva Longoria Foundation and John Legend’s philanthropy have helped fund a series of pro-Common Core TV ads featuring classroom teachers. Yet none of those luminaries has taken on a highly visible role.

Perhaps the Common Core’s best celebrity endorsement comes from the American Girl doll company. The $28 back-to-school backpack sets come with a miniature Common Core math text along with doll-sized mechanical pencils. The book is even printed with real Common Core problems, just like the ones assigned in many elementary schools. “If you like to play school with your doll,” one happy customer wrote, “this is a must have set.”

And there are no reports of the 18-inch students bursting into tears.

At least, not yet.