Watching TV just got a little more educational thanks to ads from energy giant ExxonMobil urging viewers to support Common Core State Standards.
ExxonMobil's Common Coread was first uploaded in April 2012, but the 30-second commercial is still being played on television. Earlier this year it appeared during the Masters golf tournament.
Forty-five states have joined together to ensure consistent academic standards across America, begins the narrator, as the commercial goes through the colorful road through elementary school, college, and then a colorful city. These internationally recognized benchmarks are unlocking a better way to prepare our children for college and their careers. Because when our kids do better, America does better.
The road then begins to shoot upward and continues:
Lets reach higher. Lets invest in our teachers and inspire our students. Lets solve this.
And cut.
The energy giants support for the standards is listed on its website,where ExxonMobil outlines mathematics in particular as one of Common Cores strongest suits.
In mathematics, the standards lay a solid foundation in whole numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, and decimals, says the website. Taken together, these elements support a students ability to learn and apply more demanding math concepts and procedures.
The energy company has already received lots of negative feedback for the ads.
Executive director of the ExxonMobil Foundation, Patrick McCarthy, said 99 out of 100 emails the company received in response to the ads were from those opposed to Common Core.
Exxons not the first large company to endorse the national standards. Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems have also taken up the banner to defend Common Core.
Carlos Contreras, the director of U.S. education for Intel, says the company has been discussing the importance of Common Core at various forums for its employees. The ultimate idea for Intel is that those workers will become ambassadors for the national standards, he said.
Some Common Core opponents have denounced the standards as part of a large corporate agenda -- and Exxons commercials supporting the standards may not be helping to dispel that notion.
The standards have already been drawing backlash around the country and from those who believe they are riddled with problems. In Florida, the voices against Common Core are reaching an all-time high as the Department of Education scrambles to prepare teachers, students and schools to have them fully implemented by the 2014-2015 academic school year.
Florida has already withdrawn from the financial aspect of the assessment test commonly coupled with the standards, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test (PARCC), but the standards are still set to go forward.
Florida Stop Common Core Coalition has been a strong voice to denounce the standards and what they see as corporate entities able to profit immensely from implementing Common Core.
FSCCC wrote a letter to Gov. Rick Scott earlier this month, urging him to stop supporting corporate interests involved in the education system.
You need to stop supporting the corporate interests that are manipulating Florida's education system for their profit at the expense of our children," read the letter. Otherwise, be prepared for a major backlash."
Dr. Karen Effrem from FSCCC expressed her disappointment over the TV ad.
"I am saddened that this corporation has bought into and is promoting the lie that national standards in general and Common Core in particular will solve education problems," she told Sunshine State News. "[ExxonMobil] appear[s] to be another large corporate interest that wants national control over our education system to have schools train children in low level, non-cognitive, psychosocial, workforce competencies ... instead of educating them with broad-based knowledge so they can maintain our republic and be the entrepreneurs and innovators of tomorrow."
Reach Tampa-based reporter Allison Nielsen atallison@sunshinestatenews.comor follow her on Twitter at@AllisonNielsen.
