Poll shows teachers, parents give Common Core low marks

Much of the opposition to Common Core appears to be rooted in its emphasis on standardized testing. (AP) (AP)

Teachers and parents are not giving high marks to Common Core, according to a series of new polls which show widespread dissatisfaction with the national curriculum standards in the first months of widespread implementation.

A poll released last week by Gallup, which is conducting an extensive series of surveys on Common Core, found that nearly two-thirds of public school teachers have concerns about the program, which is designed to implement a national math and English learning baseline for all participating states. An earlier survey, conducted as part of the same project, found that 44 percent of teachers view Common Core negatively.

"The national polling data reveals more bad news for the Common Core because 60 to 65 percent of America's teachers are either 'frustrated' or 'worried' by it, only 20 percent of teachers are 'enthusiastic', and 44 percent of teachers now view Common Core 'negatively', Jamie Gass director of the Center for School Reform at the Boston-based think tank, Pioneer Institute said to FoxNews.com.

Common Core has been in the works since 2009, but is only this year being rolled out in schools across the country. The debut has brought a backlash from parent groups, teachers unions and even several state legislatures, which have repealed decisions to participate.The poll found opposition to Common Core among parents growing since last year, with 35 percent of parents opposing it and 33 percent viewing it positively. In April, a survey determined that 35 percent of parents were in favor and 28 percent opposed.

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But while parental opposition appears to be growing as the standards are put in play, a close look at the Gallup data shows that teachers who are most familiar with Common Core, particularly those who began to implement the standards last year, are most likely to have positive opinions of it. In schools where the Common Core standards were fully implemented in the 2013-2014 school year, 61 percent view it positively.

One of the real sources of anxiety regarding Common Core is the standardized testing that measures performance on the benchmark curriculum. Parents are increasingly having their children opt out of the testing, and teachers have long objected to heavy emphasis on standardized tests, complaining that it encourages them to simply "teach to the test."

"The standards were positive until standardized testing was involved," said one Michigan high school teacher who took part in Gallup's survey.

A summary of the poll underscored the suspicion with which teachers view standardized testing.

“From their vantage point on education's front lines, U.S. public school teachers see the potential for problems with the computer testing of students that has become integral to the Common Core program,” reads a summary from the poll. “The majority of teachers in Common Core states indicate that the students they work with lack the level of typing and computer skills needed to perform well on the tests. And nearly half say their school is ill-prepared when it comes to the computer hardware or network capabilities needed to administer them.”

Although 46 states initially signed on to all or part of Common Core, Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have repealed it and similar movements are underway in Missouri, North Carolina and Louisiana. Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia never signed on.

Officials at the Council of Chief State School Officers—one of the two organizations that devised the standards-- says that that the results show that Common Core will work when properly implemented.

“These survey results show what we have seen happening in classrooms across the country,” Carissa Moffat Miller, deputy executive director for CCSSO told FoxNews.com. “The more time teachers spend with the Common Core State Standards, the more they understand how these standards will help improve learning for all children.”