The president essentially bribed states into implementation via 'Race to the Top,' offering $4.35 billion taxpayer dollars to participating states, $500 million of which went to Tennessee and much like No Child Left Behind, the program promises national testing and a one-size-fits-all education, because hey, it worked so well the first time......If nothing else, these standards are a glowing conflict of interest and they lack the research they allegedly received... Somewhere our Founding Fathers are turning in their graves — pleading, screaming and trying to say to us that we teach to free minds. We teach to inspire. We teach to equip, the careers will come naturally......I stand before you because I care about education, but also because I want to support my teachers and just as they fought for my academic achievement, so I want to fight for their ability to teach. This relationship is at the heart of instruction, yet there will never be a system by which it is accurately measured......Bureaucratic convenience, it works with nuclear reactors, it works with business models, why can't it work with students? I mean how convenient, calculating exactly who knows what and who needs what. I mean, why don't we just manufacture robots instead of students? They last longer and they always do what they're told...