At an education summit in New Hampshire earlier today, sponsored by an education reporting website and a school choice advocacy group, six GOP presidential hopefuls explained their platform on education.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich was there, and used a chunk of his allocated 45-minute time slot to reiterate his support of the Common Core.
But he avoided mentioning the controversial math and English standards for students in grades K-12 by name.
The discussion was moderated by former CNN and NBC journalist Campbell Brown, who opened up the Common Core discussion with one question about the standards, which Ohio joined the majority of the country in adopting roughly five years ago.
"Let me shift gears, to Common Core," she said.
"Sure," Kasich said.
"Do you still support it," asked Brown
"Look, let me tell you the way I see what that “label” is," he responded, avoiding a yes or no answer by giving a brief history of the learning expectations before voicing his support.
"I don’t write the standards, President Obama doesn’t write the standards or the curriculum," he continued. "We have the high standards as established as where we should go, and we do it only in math and in English, and the bottom line is we have higher standards with school boards writing the curriculum to meet the higher standards with parental advisory."
While several of the Republican presidential candidates have supported the Common Core at one point in time, Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are the only remaining fans.
Common Core has been controversial among some Republicans who see the standards as the federal government exercising control over local schools.