A day after one House Committee proposed budgeting for tin foil hats to make a statement about opposition to Common Core Standards for public education, another House Committee will hear a proposal to bar the implementation of those standards in Missouri.

A picture circulating on Twitter late Wednesday night shows the desk of Representative Mike Lair (R-Chillicothe) in the Missouri House of Representatives' Chamber covered in tinfoil. (courtesy of Twitter user @abemesser)

A picture circulating on Twitter late Wednesday night shows the desk of Representative Mike Lair (R-Chillicothe) in the Missouri House of Representatives’ Chamber covered in tinfoil.
(courtesy of Twitter user @abemesser)

The House Appropriations Committee on Education on Wednesday approved a recommended budget for K-12 education that includes $8 for tin foil hats. The line item’s exact language reads, “For two rolls of high-density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/or black helicopter mind reading and control technology.”

The provision was inserted by the committee’s chairman, Representative Mike Lair (R-Chillicothe), who intended it to suggest that some lawmakers’ opposition to the Common Core Standards is based on paranoia.

Some opponents of Common Core tie it to things like the collecting of data on students and indoctrination of children.

Lair told the committee, “When you deal with conspiracy theorists, you do logic first.”

He noted legislation he filed that would limit the sharing of data and that would prevent the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) from mandating curriculum or textbooks.

“If you can’t deal with folks with logic,” Lair continued, “I always felt you use humor.”

The jibe may have earned Lair a measure of in-kind retribution. A photo circulated late Wednesday night on Twitter showed his desk in the House of Representatives’ Chamber covered in tin foil, along with his chair, laptop, voting box and microphone stand.

Representative Mike Lair (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Mike Lair (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The appropriation bill containing the $8 for tin foil goes to the full House Budget Committee for consideration.

Thursday the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education is scheduled to hear a bill filed by Representative Kurt Bahr (R-St. Charles) that would prevent the State Board of Education from adopting and DESE from implementing Common Core State Standards. It would void all actions taken to adopt those standards after its effective date, August 28, and would make any statewide education standard subject to the approval of the General Assembly. 

That hearing is scheduled to begin 30 minutes after the House adjourns for the morning in House Hearing Room 3, in the Capitol basement.