The Common Core debate rolls merrily along. It’s made the occasional appearance in the contest for the GOP nomination — popping up occasionally between new Trumpisms and debate postmortems — and as states have released results on the new Common Core tests. This has all fueled any number of claims about what Americans think of the Common Core, much of it informed by push polls and agenda-driven analysis. The result, as one Washington Post headline put it earlier this year, is that the media have generally concluded:  “Conservatives hate Common Core. The rest of America? Who knows.”

In truth, there are numbers that offer a clear take on public sentiment and how it’s evolved when it comes to the Common Core. There are two national, annual polls of attitudes towards education: one by Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa and the other by Education Next (of which I’m an executive editor). Today, these are the only credible, independent numbers providing a year-over-year measure of national sentiment.

Conveniently, both organizations released their 2015 surveys a few weeks back, timed to coincide with the start of the 2015–16 school year. Between 2010 and 2015, each survey featured two Common Core questions that were asked more than once.

Read the article “Common Core’s Eroding Support among Both Republicans and Democrats” on nationalreview.com.