Just 17% of Americans Support Common Core

Fairleigh Dickinson’s Public Mind Poll found only 17% of Americans favor the Common Core State Standards.  40% of Americans say they disapprove of the Common Core State Standards with 42% who are unsure.

40% also say that they approve of attempts by the federal government to establish educational standards than approve of the Common Core. 38% said they were against federal standards with 22% saying they were unsure.  A majority of Democrats (55%) say that they approve of federal attempts to establish standards, along with only 25% of Republicans but only 27% of Democrats and 9 percent of Republicans say that they approve of the Common Core.

Fairleign Dickinson’s apparent goal in their polling was to paint the opposition as “uninformed” by asking those surveyed whether sex education, evolution and climate change were part of the Common Core State Standards.

44% of those polled said sex education were part of the standards, 40% said they were unsure, and 16% said no.  Also 43% polled said that evolution was part of the Common Core State Standards.  17% said no, and 39% said they were not sure.  43% of those polled also said that Global Warming was part of the Common Core State Standards with 17% who said no, and 39% who said they didn’t know.

They also asked about the American Revolution and 48% of those polled said it was part of the Common Core, 13% said no, 39% said they were unsure.

First, this is one poll which apparently had an agenda.  Second, evolution and global warming is part of the Next Generation Science Standards which some news stories have connected to Common Core.  Third, there are national sex education standards which have stated they are “aligned” to Common Core.  With American History – there are literacy standards within Common Core for social studies.  I would suspect that has to do with information about the C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards, and the outrage against the new AP U.S. History framework.

What this poll doesn’t answer is all of the reasons people oppose the Common Core.  I’d suspect if they also asked if Common Core included Math and English a vast majority would have said yes.

I can say people did not get misinformation from this website.  It is imperative that those of us who oppose Common Core are clear about what the standards are and are not.  We need to be very clear in our terminology and correct those who call the Next Generation Science Standards as Common Core Science or refer to the National Sex Education Standards as Common Core (both are bad, but we need to call them by their proper names).  We need to discuss the lack of quality within the standards, and the way they were implemented.  We need to point out how the standards are dataless reform.  We need emphasize that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to education does not work.

Those who support Common Core will look for anything that will discredit those who oppose Common Core.

That said we need to look further at these numbers. I find it interesting that the percentage of those who had zero false beliefs about Common Core was higher among those who disapprove of the Common Core than approve of it, with the exception of Democrats.

Among Democrats only 17% of those who oppose Common Core had no false beliefs.  23% of Democrats who did not oppose Common Core did not have any false beliefs.  Among independents 30% of those who opposed Common Core did not have any false beliefs.  Only 8% of independents who approved did not.  Among Republicans 23% of those who oppose Common Core did not hold any false beliefs about Common Core, only 12% of those who support Common Core could say the same.

Perhaps it’s those who support Common Core who are uninformed?