In her recent New York Times op-ed, "The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students", Diane Ravitch describes the effects of Common Core as compared to its promise. I do agree with much of what she says there, about the way Common Core was a rush job funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation money — and, incidentally, written by ill-qualified authors — and the way it was sold as a panacea that will "improve achievement and reduce the gaps between rich and poor, and black and white." And I do agree with her when she attributes the recent sharp drop on NAEP achievement to Common Core — after all, it is difficult to see any other national level educational change in recent years that could have produced such a broad and sharp dip in achievement across the nation.[...]
Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson (photo credit: Gage Skidmore)[/caption][...] 
Loyola University New Orleans (photo credit: Louisiana Travel via Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)[/caption][...] 
From left: former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson (photo credit: Gage Skidmore)[/caption][...]