December 5, 2013 2:02PM # The Core of Big Brother By [Neal McCluskey](https://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey) --- SHARE Over at *SeeThruEdu* I’ve got a post responding — sort of — to a [recent article ](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-25/dumb-versus-dumber-in-common-core-debate.html)on the Common Core by *National Review*’s Ramesh Ponnuru. It’s only “sort of” because for the most part Ponnuru is right on the money: Some of the allegations against the Core are highly dubious, but so are many of the arguments proffered for it. My only quibble is that Ponnuru says that the Core doesn’t represent “Big Brother in the classroom.” Narrowly that’s right — the Core itself is just the standards — but when you look at the data collection and overall federal policy of which the Core is an integral part, fears about Big Brother — or maybe Big Micromanager — coming to a school near you are reasonable. Check [it out](http://www.seethruedu.com/updates/big-brothers-education-core)! ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).