Christie on Changing on Common Core: We Gave It Four Years and It Didn’t Work

CHRISTIE: "No, I’m changing because I gave it four years to work. I mean, unlike some other folks, who just reflexively dismissed it, I said, all right, let’s give it a chance. Let’s see if it will work. It was originally written by the nation’s governors. Let’s give it a chance. But in four years, John, we did not have educators or parents buy into Common Core. I can’t tell you many people, including my own sister, came to me and complained about Common Core. And at the end of the day, if you don’t have buy-in from the educators and you don’t have buy-in from the parents, if what I’m worried about is, well, if I change my mind, gosh, somebody like John Dickerson is going to be accuse me of flip- flopping, well, that’s the way it goes.
That’s being stubborn and not being a leader. If you give something four years, which we did in New Jersey, to work, and it doesn’t work, then you need to change, because you owe it to the kids and their parents to do something different."