Common Core Cant

With the Common Core State Standards encountering remarkable political turbulence, you might think advocates would focus their energies on making their case and answering critics. After all, just yesterday Indiana became the first state to reverse its decision to adopt the Common Core. Instead, leading advocates seem intent on using junk polling to say, “There’s nothing to see here.”

Yesterday, the Collaborative for Student Success — a mishmash of substantial educational philanthropies — released a poll that purported to show that Americans love the Common Core even if they don’t know it. The new poll showed that two-thirds of respondents like the Common Core and that one-third “strongly” support it. This is pretty remarkable given that, just last summer, over 60 percent of respondents told Gallup they had never heard of the Common Core. What explains the remarkable shift? It turns out that the positive response was elicited after pollsters read just “a single sentence describing” the Common Core.

That “single sentence” explained: “To ensure that all students are prepared for success after graduation, the Common Core Standards establish a set of clear, consistent guidelines for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level across subjects.” (The astonishing thing is that 24 percent of respondents disapproved even after this explanation.) Fifty-seven percent of Republicans reportedly support the Common Core, thus described, and 60 percent of respondents would be more likely to vote for a pro–Common Core candidate.

Read more from this story HERE.