Tide shifting against Common Core

By Jason Russell, Jason Russell

Published December 20, 2015

The more people hear about Common Core, the more controversial it becomes.

Massachusetts would rather spend millions of dollars and delay testing by a year than stick with a test aligned with Common Core education standards, The New York Times reports.

Only two national groups develop tests tied to Common Core: the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Massachusetts joins a growing number of states that are either moving to other tests or seriously considering doing so.

"It's hugely symbolic because Massachusetts is widely seen as kind of the gold standard in successful education reform," Morgan Polikoff, an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California, told The New York Times. "It opens the door for a lot of other states that are under a lot of pressure to repeal Common Core."

In some places, the fight against Common Core has seen bipartisan support. Teachers' unions oppose using the Common Core tests to evaluate teachers. Some conservatives say states were pressured by the federal government to adopt Common Core.