Poll: Teachers, Public Sour on Common Core Education Standards

Public support for the national education standards known as Common Core is falling, though a slight majority remains in favor, a new poll finds.  Less than half of teachers surveyed back Common Core, however.

The poll by Education Next, a journal from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, found that public support for the Common Core standards in reading and math dropped from 65 percent last year to 53 percent now.

Opposition to the education standards doubled, from 13 percent to 26 percent.

The number of teachers who oppose Common Core plummeted: Last year, 76 percent of teachers supported the national standards, with 12 percent opposed. Today, 46 percent of public school teachers say they support Common Core, with  40 percent opposed.

The results are based on a nationally representative, stratified sample of adults 18 and older, as well as representative oversamples of three subgroups: teachers, blacks, and Hispanics.

The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers developed Common Core in 2009.

Brittany Corona, an education expert at the Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation, says state officials were “enticed” to adopt the national education standards through stimulus funding and waivers from provisions of the No Child Left Behind law.

Last year, a Gallup poll found that most Americans had no idea what the national standards even were, although Common Core arguably is one of the most important education initiatives in decades.

A total of 45 states originally agreed to sign on to Common Core. Since the results came under public scrutiny, though, Indiana, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma have dropped out and reclaimed their authority to implement state standards that reflect the input of academic experts, teachers, and parents.

Other states have downgraded their involvement, and education experts predict Ohio will be the next to buck Common Core.