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Jeb Bush to Common Core Critics: 'If you're comfortable with mediocrity, fine'

Former governor Jeb Bush addressed critics of Common Core State Standards in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, and he didn't show signs of backing down from his support of the national standards.

"If you're comfortable with mediocrity, fine. I'm not," said Bush at an appearance at the National Press Club. "And I think most Floridians aren't either. Yeah, there's a political consequence to all this. There is a lot of heat right now. But the simple fact is, no one can defend the lower standards that we have across this country."

Bush said it was important to embrace higher standards, but some are speaking out against Common Core, voicing concerns over data mining and saying the standards haven't been tested thoroughly enough. Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford have already voiced opposition to the testing assessment portion of Common Core, PARCC, saying it will be expensive and time-consuming.

"There are a lot of people that believe that somehow this is a national takeover of what is the domain of local and state governments ... but in fact these are 45 states that have voluntarily come together to create fewer, higher, deeper standards that, when you benchmark them to the best of the world, they are world class," Bush said. "I'm for that. I'm not for the politics of education. I tire from the politics of education.

"The fight about Common Core is political. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have huge swaths of the next generation of Americans that can't calculate math. They can't read. Their expectations in their own lives are way too low. And we're not going to be able to sustain this extraordinarily exceptional country unless we challenge every basic assumption on how we do things."

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