Common Core

Common Core, A Story of School Terrorism is winner of the Society of Professors of Education book award for 2014. Intrigue, politics, and romance collide in this satirical novel about school reform. As it opens, the US Secretary of education is poisoned, teachers change students' answers on a state test, a charter school is bombed and a shadowy plan to build a teacher robot to replace human teachers is revealed. Declaring the poisoning and bombing terrorist acts, Homeland Security and the FBI begin an investigation into a complex world of for-profit schools, educational investment companies, politicians, international culture wars, and a host of special interest groups ranging from neo-Nazi organizations to radical anti-testing groups. FBI Agent Tim Geary, a hero of the Boston Marathon terrorist investigation, leads the search for the killers. What he discovers is an intricate financial and political network linking the Common Core Investment Fund, which supports corporatizing public schools and bribes Chinese officials involved in building the teacher robot, with Brightstone, a testing and publishing giant, and Kiwi, a major technology company selling products to schools. As the mystery unfolds, China's Ministry of State Security and the Hanban struggle with the US State Department and CIA to control the language and culture of the teacher robot, while Cincinnati Teachers Union's President Felicia Cochran leads a national campaign to save public schools from corporatization and takeover by for-profit companies. Entertaining, thought-provoking, and suspenseful, the startling finale of this page-turner reveals who did what to whom and why