Louisiana’s Common Core Debacle

John White may be the silver-tongued boy wonder of the school reform movement, lauded for his political acumen and often mentioned as a future U.S. secretary of education. But last fall, Louisiana’s whip-smart and occasionally cantankerous education superintendent found himself on a lonely mission: driving his state-issued Prius along the Bayou State’s two-lane highways, stopping at churches, schools and Chamber of Commerce meeting halls, promoting the embattled Common Core learning standards to a state whose governor no longer wants them.