The Lone Ranger is alive and well and living in Missouri
Missouri Education Watchdog (MEW) celebrated yesterday - in a big way – when it announced that the state of Missouri is no longer a member of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). Why? It’s UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Something many people have been pointing out for years.
How did this happen? Missouri has the good fortune of claiming Mr. Fred Sauer as one of her own. A Missouri resident who has no children in the public school system threatened with the looming Smarter Balanced Assessment in their foreseeable future. In fact, Mr. Sauer has no children currently floundering under the Common Core States Standards Initiative at all.
So what was the impetus for filing a lawsuit to expose the illegalities of the SBAC consortium? Principles? Respect for the Constitution? A distaste for special interest concerns? A sense of fair play? All of the above?
Is Fred Sauer a modern day Lone Ranger – “prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right?”
Mr. Sauer’s son, D. John Sauer, filed the suit on behalf of Missouri plaintiffs Fred Sauer, Gretchen Logue, and Anne Gassel. Following is taken from the judgment:
The court finds that the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, a.k.a. Smarter Balanced, Smarter Balanced at UCLA, SBAC and SB is an unlawful interested compact to which the US. Congress has never consented, whose existence and operation violate the Compact Clause of the U. S. Constitution, Article I § 10, cl. 3, as well as numerous federal statutes; and that Missouri’s participation in the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium as a member is unlawful under the state and federal law.
Although Missouri expects an appeal – John Sauer says he is ready to defend it. Still this judgment of truth brings hope to many people in other states who are being ignored by the elected and unelected alike on this and many other issues surrounding the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
Perhaps Nevada has her own Lone Ranger – he or she just hasn’t saddled up yet.
