Common Core Standards: Who’s in Charge?
American Enterprise Institute scholar Mike McShane illustrates in US News & World Report how the implementation of common core standards and its assessment infrastructures are creating problems. One of these is unfolding now in several states. McShane points out that no one is really in charge.
The standards were developed by two organizations, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, and they, along with a group of affiliated non-profits and foundations, worked to get the standards adopted. None of the organizations has any teeth to ensure that states live up to their commitments. If states lower their cut scores (PARCC or Smarter Balanced) for students on the aligned assessments, who will hold them to account? Ceding state power to an organization that could would be the very thing local control advocates