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Groundbreaking Documentary Sheds Light on Common Core

Contact: Michael Farris, Jr., Home School Legal Defense Association, 540-338-8287, mfarrisjr@hslda.org   

PURCELLVILLE, Va., March 25, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ -- As the national conversation over the Common Core State Standards continues to heat up, one non-profit and an indie filmmaker are hoping that their upcoming documentary will shed light on an issue that they believe is a largely unknown problem. The film Building the Machine is about how Common Core came to be and how it will affect education for years to come. 

The Home School Legal Defense Association's department of Film and Visual Media has been working on the documentary for over a year and the film's director believes it will make waves in the public debate over Common Core. "When I first started working on the film, I had very limited knowledge about the Common Core and how it made its way into our public schools," Ian Reid, the film's director, said. "At first it seems like an ideal solution to the commonly cited woes of an education system that is failing our students: After all, who wouldn't want higher standards? But after more than a year of investigative research, and in-depth interviews with many on the inside of the education standards world, it was clear that there is much more to the implementation of the Common Core than merely 'raising standards.'"

The Common Core State Standards are the product of the National Governor's Association, the Council of Chief State School Officials, education experts, and many wealthy backers like the Gates Foundation. The standards are being implemented in schools across 45 states. While the Constitution gives the federal government no direct authority over education, the government has created incentives for states to adopt the Common Core as a tactic for national curriculum. But many experts have voiced skepticism as to whether the standards are actually good for American children.

"Our goal is to present a balanced investigative documentary, by interviewing experts on both sides of the issue -- including some members of the Common Core Validation Committee," said Reid, "and this led to a variety of fascinating discoveries about the culture war that is being waged in education right now. One of the most troubling was the clear difference between the two factions' willingness to dialogue over this revolutionary change. Particularly, my team and I found that while many opponents to the Common Core were willing to speak out, only a small fraction of the supporters would engage in the discourse."

One thing that Reid finds most fascinating about the Common Core is that it erases party lines. "Common Core is not a typical liberals-versus-conservatives issue," he said. "It's an issue that concerns parents and the future of their child's education, and I hope to get the message across that their ability to steer the education of their child is largely slipping away from their hands and into the hands of politicians, unelected bureaucrats, and large corporations."

The film will be released by the Home School Legal Defense Association online at 9:00 a.m. EDT on March 31, 2014, for free. HSLDA will also be accepting pre-orders for the extended DVD set which will ship later this summer. Reid is the Director of Film and Visual Media at the Home School Legal Defense Association.

To request a pre-screen link to the documentary, please e-mail media@hslda.org.  

Home School Legal Defense Association is a nonprofit advocacy organization established to defend and advance the constitutional right of parents to direct the education of their children and to protect family freedoms.  Visit us online at www.HSLDA.org.