Link: Common Core Battles

A nice overview of the history of the battles around Common Core. Starts with a surprising anecdote about Bill Gates getting the brush-off when he personally met with Charles Koch to discuss the issue. Re: George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind", an aggravatingly familiar development:

To bring themselves closer to 100%, many states simply lowered the score needed to pass their tests. The result: In 2007, Mississippi judged 90% of its fourth graders “proficient” on the state’s reading test, yet only 19% measured up on a standardized national exam given every two years. In Georgia, 82% of eighth-graders met the state’s minimums in math, while just 25% passed the national test. A yawning “honesty gap,” as it came to be known, prevailed in most states.

Peter Elkind: Business Gets Schooled