At his Iowa blog Caffeinated Thoughts last week, ThePulse2016.com’s own Shane Vander Hart posted a lengthy interview with Gov. Bobby Jindal during his Iowa swing.  Jindal’s mastery of the Common Core debate was epic:

“We are going to fight Common Core with everything we’ve got in Louisiana. We are in federal court against Arne Duncan.  We are in our state legislature, when it comes into session in April, we are going to pass legislation where we get rid of Common Core,” Jindal vowed.

Gov. Jindal then debunked the Bill Bennett arguments currently on the airwaves that Common Core is just a set of standards and that local control over classrooms remains: “The standards determine what is tested.  The tests determine what is taught which determines the curriculum,” Jindal stated.

And he points out, the standards themselves are flawed:

Look at the actual standards.  Look at the move away from Euclidean geometry.  Look at the de-emphasis on getting the right answers at an earlier grade.  Look at the move away from the classic texts in the ELA.  There are a lot of content specific issues with this.

But Jindal also indicated he understands there is a deeper problem, a problem with a philosophy of education:

The reason we pay for public education, the fundamental reason we have education is we want a self-governing society.  We want citizens who can make critical decisions for themselves and for others when they vote in elections, when they train the next generation of leaders. Historically you track the reasons why in this country we fund public education is to train the next citizens, the next generation, in critical thinking to have a self-governing republic.

Jindal also told Caffeinated Thoughts that he wants to reduce the influence of Washington by shrinking the U.S. Department of Education and then allocating those dollars to the states via block grants, thus reducing the federal role to overseeing transparency, deregulation and civil rights.  Everything else, Jindal said, should be left to local control.  “Let’s trust parents,” Jindal added.

Maggie Gallagher is the editor of ThePulse2016.com.