Why are so many states replacing Common Core with carbon copies?
Getting a fresh set of standards should be easy in a state where Common Core is opposed 39 percent to 51 percent, right?
Louisiana is poised to join the roster of states putting the Common Core standards under review. But in states that have scuttled the standards, namely South Carolina and Indiana, the replacement standards have been near carbon copies of the Common Core, critics have complained.
So why is it so difficult to get standards that are a radical departure from the Common Core, even in a state where Common Core is incredibly unpopular?
Common Core’s staying power might be explained by what it is and isn’t. Common Core, after all, is not a curriculum. It doesn’t mandate a set of textbooks or tests. It doesn’t provide lesson plans or scripts for teachers. It’s a list of targets for what students should be able to do at the end of each grade. And how different can those targets really be?
In Tennessee, just 38 percent of the state’s voters support the standards, according to a December Vanderbilt University poll. But the results from another poll — created by the state after Common Core opponents there called for the repeal of the standards – found that when it came down to the individual targets contained in Common Core, most participants would actually keep most of the standards intact.
More than 2,200 TennesseansWhy are so many states replacing Common Core with carbon copies? - The Hechinger Report:
