Progressive Education Group Buys Pro-Common Core Ads in Indiana

Published March 6, 2013

An advocacy group paid approximately $90,000 for TV and radio ads supporting national Common Core education standards in Indiana. Indiana’s legislature is currently considering pausing the Common Core over cost and transparency concerns while the state holds hearings on it and estimates the costs of retooling what K-12 kids learn in math and English.

Stand for Children (SFC) has deep progressive roots, spending money in 2012 to support President Obama’s campaign and two Democrat candidates in Tennessee. It advocates higher education spending and more government programs for young children. In 2011, cofounder Jonah Edelman was caught on tape describing how the organization moved its priority bill through the Illinois legislature:

“We hired 11 lobbyists, including the four best insiders and seven of the best minority lobbyists, preventing the unions from hiring them. We enlisted a statewide public affairs firm,” he said. “We raised $3 million for our political action committee between the election and the end of the year. That’s more money than either of the unions have in their political action committees. And so essentially, what we did in a very short period of time was shift the balance of power.”

SFC does not report its donors to the Federal Elections Commission. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which paid for the Core to be created by private nonprofits, has given SFC $9,017,948 for “global policy and advocacy” and Common Core activity.

Last year in Memphis, SFC spent $20,000 on another TV ad encouraging voters to approve a higher sales tax.

 

Learn more:
“I Am For the Core,” TV ad, Stand for Children: http://youtu.be/fdtDOcD7fqE