Currently, 45 states and the District of Columbia, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have adopted the Common Core State Standards. In doing so, these states believe these standards have something to contribute to their current state standards. Those considering the Common Core standards should know that they cover much of the same content as existing state standards and are intended to serve as an enhancement, not as a replacement of each state’s unique approach to education. They seek to prepare students to apply knowledge through higher-order thinking skills, have contextual skills and awareness, develop academic behaviors, learn content knowledge, and develop cognitive strategies that are incrementally developed over the course of the PK-12 education experience. Students are expected to build upon mathematical process, literacy, rhetorical, and analytic skills from year-to-year through a deliberate and continuous learning process. This requires educators to be cognizant of where their students are in the development of their knowledge and skills and where they are headed.

Notably, the Common Core standards symbolize important professional consensus among teachers, school administrators, state leaders and others in the education community regarding achievement goals for all students. The standards were designed to be rigorous and define clear and specific objectives for student learning. They also establish clear and specific expectations of what teachers must be able to do in order to strengthen their students’ knowledge and skills to levels that will support them in careers and in college.

We will now expect students to reach further than simply producing an answer to a mathematics question. Rather, the Common Core standards require students to know how and why to compare and contrast concepts, use mathematical processes to determine specific outcomes, and be able to explain how they applied knowledge to arrive at a solution.

While many education experts weighed in on the design of the Common Core standards, it is essential that states bring all stakeholders to the table to discuss an effective, systematic implementation strategy. This includes: the educators who integrate the standards into their lesson plans, the school and district administrators who facilitate a supportive environment for teachers and students, the educator preparation programs that educate and train pre-service teachers, the policy makers who determine regulations and funding support across the state, and most importantly, parents. There should be strong collaboration and ongoing communication among all these parties and others who produce and support teachers and students in each state. This would lead us to an open dialogue that solicits feedback, addresses challenges and helps everyone feel vested in a process that is systemic, sustainable and, ultimately, beneficial to the learning needs of all students. It would be truly unfortunate if the learning goals for our nation’s students were to become the focus of political rhetoric.

As America strives to remain competitive with other industrial nations, it is essential that our education system stops slipping further behind other countries, as it has in the past several years. The common core standards help address this goal by providing a rigorous baseline for students’ curricular content that is established at the school district and school building levels, leaving considerable room for creativity and innovation.

As evidenced by the 45 states that adopted the common core standards, they are generally helpful to states and local school districts that see them as informing a template for education accountability. With Congress and the administration looking at modifying state accountability requirements through a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education (ESEA) Act and issuing state ESEA waivers, respectively, it is more important than ever that states’ standards genuinely reflect student achievement.

In particular, the common core standards will help drive rigorous assessments, which serve as the basis for understanding and improving student learning and growth in a meaningful way. Such accountability from schools and school districts is critical to ensuring that our children are learning so they are college and career ready. These assessments, which are also increasingly being used as a major factor in educator evaluations, are under growing scrutiny and pressure to be accurate and reflective of authentic educational content at the K-12 level.

The common core standards do not mean a national curriculum. During the 2010 Colorado State Board of Education debate that ultimately resulted in the state’s adoption of the common core standards, opponents fallaciously argued that this would lead to the federal government taking over local school instruction. As Governor Markell correctly noted, however, the common core are state-created standards, initiated by two organizations that represent state governments, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, with significant input from local and state education communities. As such, the common core standards can be simply integrated into existing or new state standards as long as they meet basic components. For example, when Colorado adopted the common core in 2010 on a bipartisan vote, the state did so by keeping their newly updated state standards, which were already 90 percent in alignment with the common core standards, and the state department of education then adjusted the other 10 percent without sacrificing state- or locally-developed provisions.

The Common Core State Standards are perhaps the most significant education reform effort over the past two decades, so it’s no surprise that they are making waves. But forty-six states covering 90 percent of all students made the right decision to adopt them, and they should stick with it to implement them. The stakes for students are too high to back down.

As one who was involved in the Common Core effort from the outset (we held one of the first meetings to discuss it in 2006, well before the Obama administration took office), I can attest that the Common Core was and continues to be state-led. States recognized that they could produce a much better product working collectively than any state could on its own, so governors and state superintendents from forty-eight states joined forces to begin the process, under the auspices of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association. Officials from many states were intimately involved in the drafting and vetting of the standards. The idea that these were imposed on the states is simply not true.

Once the standards were released, states made their own decisions to adopt them. Yes, the federal government, through Race to the Top, encouraged states to raise standards, but state leaders had good reasons. They knew that too many students had met their state standards, yet had to take remedial courses when they entered college. They heard from business leaders that more students needed higher skills to ensure a modern workforce. Standards that specified what students needed to know to be ready for college and careers represented a step forward. Similarly, state leaders knew that U.S. students performed well below their peers from other nations, so they wanted standards that would be benchmarked against those of the best-performing countries. The Common Core State Standards answered all those needs.

What would happen if critics got their way? We would return to what we had in the years both before and after NCLB, when state standards varied widely, and some states clearly expected more of their students than other states. That was unacceptable then, and it’s unacceptable now. All students deserve to graduate from high school college and career ready, and standards that set those expectations are essential.

States are now engaged in the hard task of implementing the standards. Their success in doing so will determine whether students are able to meet the expectations the states have set. This is no time to derail the effort and go back to a time when the education a student receives depends on where he or she lives. States should stay the course.

Why the big concern about the Common Core? For many it’s about the quality of the standards, which is a topic well worth delving into. But the real problem is that -- continued protestations of supporters notwithstanding -- adopting the standards has been anything but truly voluntary, and they are very likely to lead to complete federal control of education.

First, the sham voluntarism of today. Did your state want federal Race to the Top money? It had to adopt the Common Core to be fully competitive. Did it want out of the irrational, failed, No Child Left Behind Act? It had to have signed on to the Common Core to have a decent chance. Oh, and the tests that will go with the Common Core? The consortia creating them were selected by the federal government, which is also paying the bills.

And here's something interesting: States didn't technically have to sign on to NCLB, either. They "volunteered" to take federal dough and got NCLB with it. So why don't you hear many people crowing that adopting NCLB was voluntary?

Because they know that it's almost impossible for state policymakers to turn down hundreds-of-millions of federal dollars. It looks like a whole lot of money to state citizens, and those citizens had no choice about paying the federal taxes from which the money came. So neither signing on to NCLB nor the Common Core were truly voluntary, and the only reason the nation has fallen slightly short of Common Core unanimity is that, unlike NCLB, neither Race to the Top money nor NCLB waivers were guaranteed for every state. Nonetheless, most found it impossible not to take a gamble.

That said, the biggest threat is down the line. With almost all states having adopted the Core, there's a huge chance that when Congress reauthorizes NCLB the Common Core -- and the federal tests to go with it -- will become the backbone of federal accountability, with schools rewarded or punished based on how they score on the tests. The rationale many policymakers will offer is easy to anticipate: "States have already signed on to shared standards, so it makes little sense not to base accountability on them." Classic slippery slope.

From the vantage point of Common Core supporters, that is actually the only outcome that makes sense. As Fordham Institute folks have complained on numerous occasions, the vast majority of states will not on their own raise standards and maintain strict accountability. But if states won't do it, the federal government – their boss -- must.

But even if Common Core supporters achieve that which is the logical end of national standards and testing -- federal control -- it almost certainly won't give them the educational outcomes they want.

Ultimately, the groups that have the most influence over any government policy are those most directly affected by it -- they are the most motivated to be politically involved -- and in education that's the teachers and administrators whose very livelihoods come from the system. And because they are normal human brings -- no better nor worse than the rest of us -- what they ideally want, and fight for, is as little accountability to others as possible. That’s why so few states have ever had much success with standards and testing, and why it's irrational to think that Washington will do any better. Indeed, at least to a limited extent states compete with each other for residents and businesses -- Washington doesn't face even that minimal upward pressure.

So what will the Common Core most likely get us? Red-tape driven federal control without rigorous standards and testing. It will also move us farther from the reform that actually makes sense: School choice for all, which would overcome disproportionate political power by forcing educators to respond to parents. And that's not all it would do. It would also give educators new freedom to employ different pedagogies and curricula; enable children with diverse interests and needs to link up with teachers specializing in them; and unleash crucial competition and innovation. It would, basically, stop ignoring the fundamental realities that all children are different, and no one actually knows what are the ultimate, "best" curricula.

Unfortunately, not only are we moving away from what we need, we're stuck fighting over what really isn't even a question: Adopting the Common Core hasn’t been truly voluntary at all.

The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council and American Principles Project are on the question of the Common Core Standards doing exactly what their brethren on the right indict teacher unions for doing: putting adult interests (the organizations' philosophical attachment to limited central government) ahead of the interests of students.

There’s ample evidence from the National Assessment of Education Progress, PISA, and other sources that most state standards aren’t demanding enough to ready students for the rigors of college and good jobs in a global knowledge economy.

Criticizing the standards for violating the tenets of federalism is unpersuasive. The standards were created under the auspices of state organizations (the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers) and are voluntary. While the standards establish expectations in reading and math, they don’t tell educators how to reach them. And it’s hard to suggest in a digital era that students in Alabama don’t need the same skills as their counterparts in Alaska. Moreover, when states were given the opportunity to set their own standards under the No Child Left Behind Act, many lowered them.

The common core project is partly an attempt to address than unfortunate consequence of NCLB. It’s also about addressing the larger, endemic inclination of public education to expect less of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and students of color. Unless we have explicit, high standards for all students, public schools will produce, as it did for generations, an education system of haves and have-nots, sorted largely by race and class. Given the changing nature of work and the nation’s rapidly shifting demographics, not to mention how far we’ve come in our commitment to social justice, we don’t want to go back to the future. Instead of questioning the value of rigorous common standards, we should be worried whether the states have the capacity and the compunction to implement the new standards with fidelity.

This is all overwrought on all sides. The irony in the specific episode is that a handful of anti-Common Core activists have been doing their level best to persuade ALEC, generally a hotbed of libertarianism, to play the heavy and push (even require) states to forsake the Common Core. In truth, states are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whether the Common Core is the way to go in English and math standards. It's VOLUNTARY. (Admittedly, Secretary Duncan didn't help when he used the lure of federal dollars and waivers to "incentivize" states to embrace it.) Our own (Fordham) analysis indicated that the Common Core standards are superior, on their substantive merits, to those in use in most states. But that doesn't mean states should necessarily switch to them--and if they're not going to be serious about implementing and then assessing them there's not much point. But, to repeat, it's voluntary. States are sovereign. A handful of states (led by Texas and Virginia) pointedly declared that they have no intention of adopting the Common Core. Most said they would but, of course, there will be second thoughts. Some will bail. Others (more hypocritically) will simply fail to implement. Some will probably decline to use the new assessments currently under development. That's all as it should be, despite the efforts of what some have called "eleven angry men" to demonize the Common Core. But it must also be said that the advocates are a bit hyper, too. They should expect second thoughts and backsliding. They never dreamed at the outset that 46 states would adopt and they shouldn't be surprised, or even sad, if, in the end, fewer do. Twenty years from now, the picture will likely look very different--and we'll have a far better idea (thanks to NAEP, TIMSS, PISA and other external measuring sticks) whether states using the Common Core do any better academically than those that use their own standards.

The expected opposition from ALEC is curious considering the history of the CCSS. As I recall (and I've followed this closely for years), it was originally pushed primarily by Republican governors, who won over their colleagues in the name of leveling the field of educational comparison among states.

You'd think the conservatives would be happy with the CCSS since, for the most part teachers, teacher unions, even subject area professional teacher organizations, were left out of the development of the standards until the public review, and they appear to have had limited influence on the final product.

On the other end of the political spectrum, teacher activists such as Anthony Cody are raising serious alarms about the Common Core Standards.

The idea that we can separate the Common Core from high stakes testing is mistaken. The Common Core exists for no other reason than to make such tests possible on a national scale. The Common Core is also closely associated with two big shifts in testing. First, there will be a significant expansion in the number and frequency of tests. There will be more tests, in more subjects, at more grade levels.

The fact that there will be common tests across the nation will make it easier to place even greater pressure on teachers and students to attend to test scores. Second, we will have the introduction of computer-based assessments, with the marvelous machines designed to grade tests, like the Pearson Intelligent Essay Analyzer, or other robo-grading systems.

There has been a vigorous debate about the CCSS in social media as well. Consider these recent tweets:

@MsRossEnglish @PrincipalDunlop We aren't adopting them in VA either.Probably won't.Our standards look similar to #CCSS now. #edchat

— Where The Class (@wheretheclass) May 8, 2012

#CCSS "will not improve education. It is an expensive but futile exercise." @YongZhaoUO: cfee.me/Kzk5Wh #edchat #soschat

— cfee | chris thinnes (@CurtisCFEE) May 13, 2012

Some English/Language Arts teachers have expressed worries over how the CCSS shifts emphasis in reading instruction from literature to informational writings. Similarly, some math teachers still have concerns about the impact the new standards will have in their area.

So who is happy with the CCSS? Are they becoming the Mitt Romney of edreform?