Big Business Needs to Butt Out of American Classrooms
By Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D. December 23, 2017
The fallout from Common Core continues as international and national tests report the falling scores of American students, highlighting the disastrous effect of business leaders dictating what and how students are taught.
Bill Gates, who devotes his time and vast fortune trying to change the world, used his Gates Foundation to help bankroll virtually every aspect of Common Core’s development, promotion, and implementation.
Executives at Exxon Mobil, GE, State Farm, Intel, and other corporations pushed to get the standards adopted and implemented.
For several years, Texas parents have been in a rage because Common Core is being found in their children’s classroom materials and on STAAR Tests, despite Texas law saying that is “illegal”. On April 18th, the Texas State Board of Education will finally consider an amendment to the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (TEKS) Standards to remove the illegal Common Core-compliant mathematic process skills. 
The 84th Texas Legislature House Bill 2804 created the Texas Commission on Next Generation Assessments and Accountability (NGAA) to prepare recommendations for statutory changes for the student assessment and public school accountability programs. An analysis finds that if these recommendations are implemented, Texas curriculum standards will be Common Core-compliant, placing Texas on the road to National Assessments. 
It seems that Texas is an ongoing battle ground for K-12 standards reviews. We’re still in a war to get the 
On November 16, 2016 the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) heard still more testimony about the Common Core process standards that are deeply embedded within the current 2012 SBOE adopted math standards. After several years of public rage over Common Core being found in instructional materials and on STAAR tests despite Texas law, one has to wonder why the SBOE has done nothing to resolve the issue.
For the past tumultuous year and a half, the Texas English language arts and reading (ELAR) curriculum standards (TEKS) have been under review – actually rewritten rather than reviewed as the panel was instructed. 
In