Poll: In Reversal from Last Year, More California Voters Oppose Common Core Standards

A new poll finds that 44 percent of registered voters in California have a negative impression of the Common Core standards compared to 38 percent who say their impression of the nationalized standards is positive.

The 2014 PACE/USC Rossier Poll also showed that nearly half of the voters polled – 47 percent – said they were familiar with the Common Core standards, a substantial increase from the 2013 poll when just 29 percent of voters were familiar with the standards.

Both findings suggest that, as more people become knowledgeable about the Common Core standards, their view of them is increasingly unfavorable.

In addition, as mfour.com reports, poll participants were also asked to choose between two statements regarding the Common Core. Regarding a statement that California should not implement the standards because they represent a “Washington D.C.-based, one-size-fits-all approach” to education, 41 percent of voters agreed with the statement, while 32 percent said California is right to implement the standards because they prove a “clear, consistent understanding of what students are expected to learn.”

In the 2013 PACE/USC Rossier Poll, only 25 percent were opposed to the Common Core’s “one-size-fits-all approach,” while 36 percent of California voters said their state should implement the standards. This most recent poll, then, indicates a reversal from the prior year’s survey.

The latest poll also found support for Common Core varied widely by age and political party affiliation. Voters aged 65 and older were most negative about the controversial standards, with 51 percent expressing a negative impression and 36 percent having a positive impression.

Among Democrats, 46 percent viewed the Common Core positively, compared to 34 percent who held a negative impression. For those with Republican Party affiliation, 56 percent had a negative impression while 30 percent had a positive view.

“In a strongly Democratic state that has seen relatively few implementation issues, this points to a real messaging problem for advocates of the Common Core,” said Morgan Polikoff, assistant professor of education at the USC Rossier School and an expert on the Common Core standards.

The poll was conducted June 19-22 by polling firms MFour Mobile Research and Tulchin Research. The survey’s margin of error for the overall sample was +/- 3.5 percentage points.

“Parents are seeing the detrimental effects of the implementation of Common Core,” Darcy Brandon, a California parent organizer for Citizens for Quality Education, told Breitbart News. “They want the best for their children and are not seeing it in Common Core.”

Brandon said the Common Core math standards are of serious concern to parents.

“The schools are telling parents they will no longer offer ‘math acceleration’ classes, in order to align with Common Core, and that grade skipping (for high achieving students) will no longer be the ‘best practice,'” she explained. “This will do nothing other than discourage the high-achieving students, frustrate the lower achieving students and force the teacher to ‘teach to the middle.'”

“Both parents and teachers are seeing their students being overly tested, with assessments being mandated on a continuous basis to monitor progress,” Brandon added. “Every time a teacher has to test his or her students, time is taken away from actual teaching.”

“Additionally, the push for group work, group projects and project-based learning also take time away from teaching the foundations our children need,” she said.

“So yes, parents in California have lost faith in Common Core, and we are not getting straight answers from our school boards, principals or superintendents,” Brandon continued. “All they know are the talking points propaganda they’ve been sold.”

“We have been asking questions about improvements in education quality to be expected from Common Core, the supposed “benchmarks” for Common Core, and the cost of adopting the standards for over a year,” Brandon concluded, “all of which have gone unanswered.”