While kids are (possibly) doing summer reading, some activists are working hard to flunk the Common Core.
Four years ago, when 44 states had adopted the K-12 curriculum standards, the whole thing seemed quiet and inevitable. Today, resistance is everywhere: from teachers and parents who chafe over testing requirements to Tea Party types who see the whole thing as government overreach. Some states are now dropping out.
Chalk it up to a big victory for a small think tank on Devonshire Street. For decades, the independent, libertarian-leaning Pioneer Institute has loomed large in Massachusetts policy debates. Now, it has a national profile as the brains of the Common Core opposition.
Pioneer came to the fight early and seeds it frequently. Its research papers, written by respected players in education, raise important, provocative questions about how the new standards will play out in practice.
