California poll shows strong support for Common Core
Think you know a lot about Common Core? A new poll finds you’re probably wrong - The Hechinger Report - http://hechingerreport.org/?p=23369
The Common Core State Standards have faced strong opposition in many states, but in California, more than three out of five registered voters support them, according to a poll commissioned by the Oakland-based nonprofit advocacy group Children Now.
In the telephone survey of 1,000 registered voters, 63 percent said they either strongly or somewhat favor the standards, while 33 percent said they somewhat or strongly oppose them, with 4 percent expressing no view.
Larger percentages of Hispanic, African-American and Asian voters said they favored the standards than white parents, who comprised 51 percent of those surveyed, according to EMC Research, the polling firm that administered the survey.
“We are not surprised to find that Common Core support remains strong in our state,” said Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, which backs the standards. “California has been a leader in implementing the updated education standards and the test results are doing what they are meant to do—shine a light on achievement gaps, which is crucial to creating a more equitable education system for California’s kids.”
The Children Now poll indicated more support for and knowledge of the Common Core than other recent surveys. However, differences in how questions were phrased and polls were administered may have influenced the answers. The Children Now prefaced asking about the Common Core by stating that the standards “established reliable and consistent learning goals in English language arts, literacy and math.”
- An April 2016 Public Policy Institute of California poll of all Californians, not just registered voters, showed respondents about evenly divided on the standards. Told that the “Common Core State Standards are a single set of K–12 English language arts and math standards that most states, including California, have voluntarily adopted,” 43 percent said they favored them, 39 percent they opposed them and 18 percent said they didn’t know.
- An August 2016 online poll of 1,202 registered voters by the Policy Analysis for California Education and USC Rossier School of Education asked the 75 percent of respondents who had indicated they knew at least something about the standards whether they “support or oppose having teachers in your community use theCommon Core State Standards to guide what they teach.” Only 44 percent said they strongly or somewhat supported the standards, compared with 51 percent who said they strongly or somewhat opposed the standards, with 4 percent saying they were unsure.
- A year earlier, a similar PACE/ USC Rossier poll found that only 26 percent of California voters approved of the Common Core, 31 percent said they disapproved, and 17 percent had no opinion, with 26 percent saying they hadn’t yet heard about the Common Core.
The Common Core standards appear to have more support in California than they do on the national level. A national online poll conducted in May and California poll shows strong support for Common Core | EdSource:
