How the Common Core Went Wrong

Even before the Common Core State Standards initiative was officially unveiled in June 2010, dozens of states had already pledged to adopt the standards. By the end of 2010, 39 states and the District of Columbia had adopted the new education standards for reading and math with little fuss or controversy. The initiative was cheered on by an impressive array of supporters: President Obama, prominent Republicans like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, the heads of national teachers' unions, the United States Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable. Supporters billed the Common Core as a state-led, technical, apolitical exercise that would modernize and rationalize American education. In fact, even as most Americans remained unaware that the Common Core existed, Arne Duncan, the Obama administration's secretary of education, declared that "the Common Core State Standards may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education."