Dive Brief:
- Republican presidential candidates have railed against the Common Core standards, but increasingly it’s becoming clear that they’re likely to stay put as they reach more classrooms.
- According to Politico, roughly 40 million — or four in five — public school students now receive Common Core-tied instruction, and most states are holding on to the standards or very similar ones.
- Just two of the Republican presidential frontrunners have not renounced their support entirely: Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Dive Insight:
Common Core testing is an entirely different ballgame. Many states plan to switch tests or revise their current ones following pushback and troubled rollouts.
But the brouhaha over testing has distracted from the reality on the ground: The standards themselves aren’t likely to budge anytime soon, and tests are likely to reflect that. “States have adopted higher standards, states have tests that measure those standards and they are comparable,” Louisiana state Superintendent John White told Politico.