Is The State newspaper running the SC Education Department?

SC Education Superintendent Mick Zais has reversed his stance and will now allow  access to Common Core Standards in rewriting standards for the state's public school students. 

Did Zais save Molly Spearman's candidacy
by quelling the media's outrage for opposoing Common Core. 

Zais defied the education industry and said earlier the politics-based Common Core standards would not have an influence on the new standards for 2015-16.  

The State newspaper pitched a tantrum with Zais' rejection of the highly unpopular and Obama-pushed Common Core.
Zais' declaration prompted  Cindi Ross Scoppe, of The State newspaper, to withdraw her onetime endorsement of Zais and accuse him of pandering to his rigid rightwing ideology. 

GOP Education Superintendent Candidate Mommy Spearman agreed with Zais' opposition to Common Core at first, but immediately contacted Scoppe, and retracted that support for Zais, once her opposition to Common Core was made public. 

Education industry insiders from the state's education board and oversight committee also vehemently denounced Zias for his opposition to Common Core.

The state's legislature has mandated the moving away from Common Core by the 2015-16 school year.

In the reversal, Zais’ spokesman Dino Teppara said: "standards writers would have access to Common Core and any other standards that they request."

Maybe Zias is just throwing the media a bone to shut them up, and call off their long knives.

There is speculation that Zais, who would have been re-elected easily, does not have the stomach for the criticism and fight, a true education reformer encounters. Spearman is much more of an education industry insider, and the last thing our students need more of. 

Let's hope the affection for Common Core is just lip service because education insiders want federal money, and that's the only way to keep getting it. 

But if the legislature we elected, and the superintendent the voters put in the office, are bullied by those who make money off of education and their media mouthpieces, it's no wonder our achievement data can be so low in the areas of the state where good education is essential.  

One other thing. Scoppe has not reported the reinstatement of her endorsement since Zias acquiesced to the will of the bureaucrats and the media. Stay tuned.