QOD: The Politics of the Common Core

From today’s New York Times:

Perhaps no issue, though, better illustrates how much Washington-style polarization has seeped into statehouses as education — and specifically Common Core. The education standards were developed by the governors association itself five years ago as a state-based way to better prepare students and address rising international economic competition.

But faced with criticism from the left and right, some governors have begun backing away from Common Core this year, and a few states have even dropped the standards entirely.

“It’s unbelievably political,” lamented Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, a Democrat, who along with a former Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia, a Republican, devised the standards.

So an issue that was held up only a short while ago as a shining example of the governors at their solutions-oriented best has become one more example of the country’s divided politics.