On Aug. 14, the Maine Equal Rights Center issued a press release announcing its campaign to repeal education’s Common Core state standards initiative. Two days later, Education Commissioner Steve Bowen resigned.

On Aug. 21, MERC held a press conference outside Gov. Paul LePage’s office and on Sept. 5 he issued an executive order blocking the standards.

The Common Core standards were passed because it was considered “emergency legislation” to get federal stimulus money. It has been three years and no money has been paid.

Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the federal government’s powers, and education isn’t one of them. That means that responsibility is left to the states and local school boards.

Common Core doesn’t have the authority to impose education standards, which is why the federal government had to bribe the states.

The Sun Journal, in an editorial “We must not abandon Common Core,”  printed Aug. 23, wrote, “We tried setting education standards locally. Didn’t work,” and, “While it has an appealing ring, leaving standards up to local schools and school boards is inefficient and impractical.”

The Sun Journal just said people’s rights has a nice ring to it but that system is inefficient and impractical, and that the federal government, with a 13 percent public approval rating, can do a better job.

The Sun Journal added, “One of the several flaws of No Child Left Behind was that it allowed states to set their own educational standards.” That isn’t accurate. No Child Left Behind doesn’t let states set their own standards. The Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the public’s right to possess that power. We, the people, control education, not the federal government.

Communists would argue that since students do better in some states but worse in others, underachievers will never be equal unless the government takes Tenth Amendment rights away. The Tenth Amendment is about states’ rights, which gives local people power over a centralized government.

The Tenth Amendment also provides a system of checks and balances, making it more difficult to overthrow the federal government. Instead of one centralized government, there are 50 state governments, and then all the individuals who make up those communities.

America doesn’t have a top-down government where a tiny minority dictates mandates over the collective. America’s government is from the ground up, which protects individual rights.

The Tenth Amendment is a brilliant safety feature. Common Core deactivates that safety feature, making a government takeover easier. That is why Common Core is dangerous and must be ended. That is what the Maine Equal Rights Center’s campaign will do.

When you hear that Common Core are “international” standards, that is another way of saying “not American.”

Commissioner Bowen said if parents want local control, then they should run for local school boards; however, that isn’t the case anymore because Common Core takes away that right.

That means that no matter how terrible a job the federal government does with education, there is nothing people will be able to do because we lost those rights and that power.

Common Core is not only unconstitutional, but criminal and violates three federal laws: the General Education Provisions Act, the Department of Education Organization Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Will under-achieving students really perform better if the government takes away the people’s rights to determine their children’s education? Is violating three federal laws and bribing the states with money that was never paid setting a good standard?

That is why we have local control and why we, the people, will vote on it. Common Core also attacks parental rights, privacy rights and others.

If a student can’t read or write by the time they graduate high school, taking away people’s rights will not change that.

Common Core is another Trojan horse, used to progressively take over local control.

The United States Constitution limit’s the power of a centralized government because when it gets to a certain point, government is no longer accountable to the people. That is when bad things happen.

The Maine Equal Rights Center’s campaign will repeal Common Core, restore Tenth Amendment rights and give power back to the people.

Erick Bennett is the director of the Maine Equal Rights Center and a political consultant and strategist. He lives in Portland.