Getting the Common Core Political Handicapping Right

Lots of coverage of the Common Core State Standards mentions polling showing that the standards’ opponents are only a minority of Americans. While that’s true, it misses a larger point about the political dynamics currently in play. As I write in a column for Talking Points Memo today:

Critics of the standards — like the mothers behind “Restore Oklahoma Public Education” — see this as a first-order, vote-determining political argument. Emmett McGroarty, education director at the conservative American Principles Project, recently said that “Common Core has become a flashpoint election issue,” and that may even understate matters a bit. For many of these folks, it has approximately the same political juice as traditionally polarizing issues like abortion and gun control. They don’t just oppose the Common Core — they loathe it intensely and scorn its supporters as deluded and even un-American. 

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