This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Gov. Gary Herbert has been a strong supporter of the Utah Common Core Standards initiative for education. His Commission on Excellence in Education endorsed it, and Lt. Gov. Greg Bell reaffirmed the administration's support in a blog post last month.
But after a lengthy meeting with Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka last week, Herbert signed on to a concurrent resolution with the Legislature asking the State Board of Education to reconsider its adoption of the program 18 months ago. He had already been negotiating that deal with Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, an Eagle Forum hall-of-famer.
Herbert spokeswoman Ally Isom said the governor has not changed his position, that he strongly supports the Common Core standards, and once all the stakeholders have a chance to thoroughly review it, they will be on board as well. The resolution to reconsider just gives everyone a chance to understand it better.
Of course, they all had that chance nearly two years ago when it was adopted by the board. But the controversy surrounding it now, and the fact that nearly all Republicans in the Legislature and the governor feel the need to have it reconsidered, indicates just who really is running the show at the Utah Capitol.
Ruzicka and her Eagle Forum soldiers see a federal conspiracy to take over the minds of the schoolchildren, according to blogs and posts on Eagle Forum-friendly social media sites. And some legislators have shared their concerns with me that there may be a hidden "gay agenda."
The Common Core standards focus on mathematics and language arts. The tests have minimum standards to be met in each grade and the entire program was prepared by a collaboration of education officials in more than 40 states.
That is what concerns the Eagle Forum and other conservative factions in Utah: They distrust any ideas coming out of other areas, and there is a suspicion that the Obama administration is trying to gain thought control over our students.
And, like it or not, the Eagle Forum has demonstrated it has the power and the ability to get enough followers elected as delegates to affect the outcomes in the nominating process at state and county conventions.
Morgan Philpot, who is challenging Herbert for the Republican nomination for governor this year, has tried to use Herbert's support of the highly touted standards initiative to say the governor is just like Obama.
While it is hard to imagine how a geometry problem or basic grammar questions can promote a certain lifestyle, one state senator, who wished to remain anonymous, cleared it up for me.
There could be math story problems, for example, that would have the student figure out a monthly payment on a house based on principal and interest. And what if the couple paying off that house were named Bill and Bob?
There is nothing like that in the test questions now, he conceded. There aren't even any story problems.
But, hey, why let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-West Jordan, has worked hard as a freshman senator this session to bring all the stakeholders in education together and try to work out solutions acceptable to everyone. He has gained respect from all sides of the issue for that, and he is the senator who sponsored SCR13, asking the school board to reconsider.
He says he wants to address a perception in Utah that the federal government is trying to take control of education.
While it is a consortium of states, he notes, federal education funding to the states through "Race to the Top" grants is contingent upon membership in that consortium.
There is a concern that special-interest groups could have too much control over the content being developed for the program, he adds.
And Dayton has a companion bill to the resolution that gives the state the ability to opt out of such a consortium under certain circumstances.