Righting On The Wall: #CommonCore is a disaster

by Kim D.

Donald Trump from the get go declared Common Core a disaster and knowingly did so because Jeb Bush had previously and enthusiastically supported federal educational guidelines. Now that American families have experienced Common Core and have seen it to be just as Trump decried, this is a great talking point and one must give kudos to Trump for speaking out on the issue.

But the vetting of candidates shouldn't stop there. It's easy to say what one is against but rather difficult to stake a claim for what one is for and Trump has a rather sketchy past in regard to education. What exactly was Trump University?

It wasn’t a real university -- and had to change its name to Trump Entrepreneur Institute because of that. It was largely a seminar program that promised to teach its students the real estate secrets that turned Trump into a billionaire. With some participants paying as much as $35,000, the project drew investigations and lawsuits in at least three states.

The university registered as a private company in New York in October 2004 and largely shut down by 2011. When NBC host Chuck Todd raised issues with the university, Trump defended the program, noting that nearly all the students thought it was "great."

"They signed these documents saying, they rated the course, 98 percent approval rating and high marks," Trump said on Meet the Press on Feb. 28, 2016. And he added, "We have an A from the Better Business Bureau."

Really? An "A"???

Katherine Hutt, director of communications for the Council of Better Business Bureaus, said that as a matter of policy, they don’t provide any ratings from previous years. But the organization issued a statement that "Over the years, the company’s BBB rating has fluctuated between an A+ and a D-."

We don’t know when the bureau might have given Trump University a top grade, but there’s no shortage of news articles saying the Better Business Bureau gave the Trump program a D-minus rating in 2010.

As Cruz mentioned in the last debate, if Trump is the Republican nominee, we may see him on the witness stand before Hillary gets there.

But the class action case filed in California in 2010 by former students hasn’t been resolved. No trial date has been set, but Trump’s name has appeared on witness lists for both sides and court records indicate it could come to trial later this year.

“I want you to think about, if this man is the nominee, having the Republican nominee on the stand in court, being cross-examined about whether he committed fraud,” Cruz said during the debate. “You don’t think the mainstream media will go crazy on that?”

Some on Twitter have weighed in with their thoughts on Trump and his past dalliance into the realm of education:

Trump University AMAZABALLS classes such as:
Hyperbole 101, Feather Hair 102, Fiction 201, Ego 301 and Self-Tanning electives #alwaystrump
— Jeremy Forsberg (@jeremyforsberg) February 28, 2016

Your spelling has improved but you can't use commas correctly - maybe a few classes at #TrumpUniversity would help? https://t.co/QyaJA8y8dg
— Yianni Georgeton (@ygeorgeton) February 27, 2016

People are wrong, Trump University is grate. There are know classes.
— Leightweight Chocker (@TheChocker) February 27, 2016

Considering canceling Monday's classes so students can take a $30K photo with a life-sized cardboard cut out of me. #TrumpUniversity
— Mike Wagner (@prowag) February 27, 2016

@JayCaruso @EWErickson who in their right mind would go to something called a Trump University? Sewing classes at the Y would've been better
— 3rdFromTheLeft (@johnatuhd) February 27, 2016