The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a set of educational milestones in English and Mathematics that (in the initiative’s authors’ opinions) K-12 students should be able to meet by certain times. A child who graduates third grade, for example, should be able to formulate an English sentence or solve a simple math problem up to a given level. The idea, ostensibly, is to establish a standard to which all schools, regardless of the state in which they operate, should strive – and that standard is one that will allow graduates to weather college courses or enter the workforce at once.

Unfortunately, like so many things the federal government attempts to do with good intentions, the reality of this initiative has already proven a colossal failure. That’s because Common Core doesn’t just seek to set goals for students; it fundamentally rewrites the ways in which schools are to educate them. What’s more, it does this in ways that are almost comically inefficient and frustrating.

To illustrate this, let’s look at a math problem. Even if you can do it in your head, close your eyes and imagine writing out the solution for thirty-two minus twelve. It’s pretty easy: We have 32 on top and 12 under it. Then we subtract 2 from 2 and 1 from 3, and we’re left writing 20 – the correct difference. It’s a simple equation, but the only way it could really get much more complicated is if a bottom digit were ever greater than one above it; then we would have to “borrow”, which can be an intimidating concept for children to learn, but is ultimately pretty straightforward and easily understood.

But the same problem turns into a nightmare under the Common Core system. Instead of a single line of work, now the student is supposed to write four lines, each containing its own equation. We get calculations like 12 + 3 and 20 + 10, each of which at least contains numbers that appear in the problem or are the answer, but then there are the bizarre exercises of 15 + 5 and 30 + 2, neither of which seem at all helpful.

What’s more, teaching this ridiculous system is proving to be a sublime frustration at homework time – for parents as well as children. If you don’t know how to work the process and your child doesn’t understand it, how are either of you supposed to make any headway? One frustrated father, sarcastically answering a word problem that instructs children to “write a letter to Jack telling him what he did right, and what he should do to fix his mistake”, wrote:

“Don’t feel bad. I have a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electronics Engineering which included extensive study in differential equations and other higher math applications. Even I cannot explain the Common Core mathematics approach, nor get the answer correct. In the real world, simplification is valued over complication.” 

And that, if you’ll pardon the word choice, is the core of the problem here. Common Core’s system may ultimately work, but it uses such a drawn-out, cumbersome process to solve even the simplest equations that it is of virtually no value in the real world. The argument in its support is that it teaches students to understand math more completely, instilling not only the steps necessary to reach a correct answer but the fundamentals of the relationships between numbers. Unfortunately, all that’s really happening is that students are pulling their hair out and giving up – test scores have plummeted since Common Core’s inception. This is especially true among those who already trailed their peers before, and who can least afford a substandard education: Poorer children.

Of course, stories also persist that Common Core’s math system does NOT always work. Anecdotal tales have circulated the notion that students are able to claim that 2 + 2 = 5, and get full credit for “creative thinking” so long as they convincingly explain their use of the mandatory process to arrive at that answer. There’s just one minor hiccup: Two plus two does NOT equal five – never has, and never will. Moreover, mathematical answers are not subject to gradation; they are absolute. Each one is either perfectly right, or completely wrong. American scientists and engineers did not put people on the Moon by believing in some hazy middle ground in which two plus two might maybe kinda sorta equal five – and teaching our children that that actually is possible is a profound disservice to them and to their futures.

We all care about the environment. It’s something we experience every day and which constitutes a constant, vital part of our lives. Let’s forget for a moment the hysterical warnings of celebrities, politicians, and Hollywood films about a sweltering, flooded planet inhabited by starving people who can’t grow enough food to survive. Even if it never gets anywhere near that bad, no one is interested in creating a planet full of smog filled skies, or in which the beautiful diversity of plant and animal life we now enjoy has been damaged or destroyed. We don’t want to live in that world ourselves; we most certainly don’t want to leave it to our children.

But the fact that we don’t want that is no license for environmentalists who seem to almost worship the planet itself as some kind of twisted pagan god to tell us all nightmarish horror stories in an attempt to frighten us into supporting the destruction of American civilization. And make no mistake: left unchecked, that is exactly what these people’s warnings of doom and gloom will lead to. We hear talk of catastrophically curtailing emissions, implementing government regulations on energy generation that would cause the utility bills of working families to skyrocket, and limits on industries considered to be “polluting” that would devastate the job market and cause real human suffering.

And for what? The United States of America is the greatest country in the world, but it is not the ONLY country. It is not even the biggest emitter of carbon emissions anymore; that would be China, a nation so blindly preoccupied with its own rampant economic growth that it will hear no mention of the kinds of restrictions that are being proposed here. The US cannot save the world with draconian caps on its own industrial activities; all it can do is destroy itself in relation to other countries who would point and laugh at a nation that used to be great and inexplicably chose to commit suicide.

That is not to say that nothing should be done – not at all. It is simply that this issue should not be approached from a perspective of hysteria, but of taking advantage of a rare opportunity. As is so often the case, the private sector is not the problem; it is the solution, if only we will let it be. Instead of devastating existing businesses (and the jobs that go with them) in the economy as it now stands, how about encouraging new businesses to grow? There is nothing wrong with renewable, non-polluting energy sources like solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams (though sufficiently crazed environmentalists will still complain even about at least two of those three). Let’s not tell the coal and oil industries that they aren’t allowed to function; let’s tell solar and wind that they ARE, and that they should. Tax incentives can be used to encourage the development of renewable energy, helping to make it more cost-effective. The minute something becomes worth the money it takes to do, you don’t need government to interfere even one ounce further. Just sit back and watch as private companies come in, turn a profit (which stimulates the economy), and create jobs while doing so (which helps real people).

Better yet, while the United States can’t clean up the environment through doing this by itself, it CAN do what it has historically done best: act as a beacon for the rest of the world. The American economy is an extremely important benchmark that helps determine and regulate global commercial behavior – and it does so naturally, through free market forces. If US companies begin utilizing renewable energy sources en masse because they have been able to make them profitable, the market for polluting forms of energy will diminish everywhere. Businesses involved in those industries don’t need to die; if the change is given time to happen organically, they will be able to retool their operations and change focus to that which has become profitable. This will spur other companies in other parts of the world – even recalcitrant areas like China – to go where the money is, and gradually bring about real change everywhere. Then the problem can be meaningfully addressed, and it can be done without the heavy-handed government tactics that leftists favor.

Instead, we see legislative disasters like California’s SB 32 and SB 350, two glaring and obtrusive examples of climate change-related regulation that means well but can only end up destroying businesses – and therefore, obliterating jobs. It is baffling why some people insist on seeing the free market as the enemy an adversary that causes the greatest ills in society. It can generate leading technological solutions, and it will and we will.  All government must do is encourage economic growth, rather than hamper and obstruct it.

In California, our schools are in peril. On the national scale, we rank 43rd in school system quality, and we are an embarrassing 49 in the all-important Safety ranking. Our educational infrastructure is aged, and aging. Teachers complain that the computers used for studying are older than many of the students using them. The buildings are ill-maintained, and in many cases dilapidated. Quite frankly, it is nothing short of an outrage that conditions such as these are tolerated. We cannot call ourselves a great state if we will not care for the educational needs of our kids. Parents expect better than this for their children, and their children deserve better.

The Public Education Facilities Bond Initiative, which will be put before voters on the November ballot later this year. This measure authorizes the issuance and sale of $9 billion worth of bonds, the money raised from which would be kept in special funds (2016 State School Facilities Fund and 2016 California Community College Capital Outlay Bond Fund) to be allocated for much-needed improvement of our schools. These improvements would include construction of brand new school facilities, modernization of existing facilities, the provision of school facilities for charter schools, career technical education programs, and the acquisition, construction, and renovation of community college facilities. The plethora of construction work needed to complete this project would create jobs for our hardworking citizens – which is worth millions in pay for those people to take home to their families – and when finished, the improvements would mean a better, safer education for our children – which is incalculable.

California’s legislative analysts and the Director of Finance have prepared a financial impact statement discussing the costs of taking on this debt and paying it back. We fully intend to meet our financial obligations; there will be no ongoing deficit spending on this matter. Costs to repay principle and interest would average about $500 million per year for 35 years, with expenditures modestly increasing at first, then leveling out for most of the life of the bond before declining in the final few years.

 I do support this bond issue and the school improvements it would make possible. It is long overdue; my home city of Irvine is already proposing a local bond issue valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars to, essentially, accomplish in Irvine what the Public Education Facilities Bond Initiative would do statewide. As Californians, we should take responsibility for our children across our great state, not leave individual cities to fend for themselves. Irvine has the right idea, but the existence of the PEFBI means it may be unnecessary. I don’t want to “double dip” the taxpayers, and there is no need to do so.

I believe in the Californians for Quality Schools, the group leading the campaign in support of this bond issue, and other groups that have been backing it such as the Coalition for Adequate School Housing and the California Building Industry Association. All of these entities are backing the initiative, because they recognize and understand how beneficial it will be to the quality of our children’s schools and how profoundly working on the improvement projects will stimulate California’s economy. They want this for our people, and I believe so do I.