by Jude Schwalbach After less than 10 years in the classroom, Common Core could soon be on its way out. The Obama administration introduced Common Core in 2010, imposing burdensome new standards and tests in an attempt to create uniform educational content across the nation. Despite loud objections from parents, teachers, school leaders, and state officials, 46 states ultimately adopted the standards due to a combination of funding carrots and regulatory sticks. But over the past few years, states have begun to reclaim their authority to set educational standards. Approximately a quarter of participating states have either downgraded their participation or withdrawn completely from the two new testing consortia introduced by Common Core. One of those consortia—the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career—once had 20 state participants but now has fewer than four. Florida, for instance, an early adopter of Common Core, withdrew from the test consortium after finding that, among other issues, testing would occur over a 20-day period. Maryland became the most recent state to roll back Common Core testing when officials there found that it overburdened teachers and didn’t help families. How exactly? As The Baltimore Sun noted, it required schools to “clear their schedules for several weeks each spring, disrupting…
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