Over at the National Review Online, there’s an article up titled, Common Core Validation Committee Member: ‘Nobody Thought There Was Sufficient Evidence’ for the Standards.

The article revisits the claims made by Common Core supporters that the standards raise achievement are based on evidence and then destroys the claim in about 6 paragraphs. One of the most damning few paragraphs were these two:

“McDonnell and Weatherford are clear that research evidence did play a role in Common Core’s development, but almost all of the evidence was used either to identify problems (such as America’s poor ranking on international tests) or to generate hypotheses (for example, that higher achieving countries have superior standards). When it came time to actually write the standards, the developers could not draw from a large store of empirical evidence on what works and what doesn’t. They had little to go on except the standards of high-performing nations and the “professional judgment” of various stakeholders.

McDonnell and Weatherford give the example of learning trajectories in mathematics. While developmental psychologists have studied how sequencing affects math learning in early childhood, much less is known about learning trajectories in later years. So the standards writers asked for the “best judgments” of people who study math education. Regarding the frequent use of expert judgment in lieu of data, one Common Core developer told the authors, “We wanted to be able to cite non-peer-reviewed research because there’s not enough research available, and often the findings are inconclusive.”

 

Shorter: Common Core is based on opinions.
Opinions that were then put into standard form by non-educators like David Coleman.

The article also touches on statements from former members of the Common Core Validation Committee. These members have stated that there was never sufficient evidence to support the standards. They were right and were wiped from the record by the Common Core cabal promptly after.