St. John Bel has been telling Louisianians that he’s against Common Core. But that’s not what he told the Baton Rouge Press Club on July 21, 2014. Here’s the clip

The full speech seems to indicate that although St. John Bel loves him some Common Core, he wants to create new state standards written by the teachers unions. The unions hate Common Core for the same reason why they hate any education standards, they simply exist and will make teachers actually teach.

He blasted the Jindal administration for its “leadership failures” on K-12 education, particularly on state standards in his full remarks on education at the same event. The parts related to education start at the 20 minute mark in this video and begins with Edwards talking about how he “sleeps with a teacher.” His wife is a government school teacher.

It sounds like St. John Bel will sign a teacher union approved version of Common Core-lite. “Abolishing Common Core” to John Bel Edwards means simply rebranding it and getting a stamp approval from the Louisiana Association of Educators and the Louisiana Federation of Teachers.

If we’re going to truly have state standards, they need to be as tough if not tougher than Common Core. The last thing we want to do is outsource them to the teachers unions. But considering that St. John Bel is a sockpuppet of the teachers unions, we shouldn’t be surprised.

For a guy who supposedly lives by the West Point honor code, St. John Bel has a habit of saying one thing and voting a completely different way. The Hayride is beginning to believe that the whole West Point honor code is less a value code for John Bel Edwards and more of a focus group approved slogan.

Exit question: will No Party turned Democrat turned Republican defeated BESE candidate Lee Barrios, who ran on the (phony) anti Common Core “Flip BESE” slate ask for a refund of the $50 she has donated to St. John Bel so far this election year?

UPDATE 10:55 A.M.: Check this out from St. John Bel’s own campaign website:

We redacted the email, phone number, and physical addresses of the John Bel campaign in the screencap. We screencapped it in case the campaign decides to send this to the memory hole. But here you are, St. John Bel points out that he has never flip-flopped on Common Core. But those videos in this post prove otherwise.