This is one in a series of posts examining the Common Core State Standards and the conversation surrounding their impact on teaching and learning.

In recent weeks, a couple of big daily newspapers (USA Today and Wall Street Journal) have taken a look at some of the political volleying over the Common Core State Standards.

Specifically, they looked at some of the opposition on the conservative side.

Though the standards have been adopted by 46 states (and D.C.), some conservatives see the standards as a federal intrusion on the rights of local states to run their own schools. The governor of South Carolina, for one, says her state should not “relinquish control of education to the federal government, neither should we cede it to the consensus of other states,” according to the Wall Street Journal story.

But there’s also the Fordham Institute, whose President, Chester Finn, wrote an interesting post a couple of months ago called “The conservative case for the Common Core.” In it he makes the argument that by adopting a set of common standards across all states, schools and local communities could then be freed up to create their own plans for meeting those standards. It’s that “tight-loose” approach to education that I’ve written about before.

Are you all following the politics of Common Core? How do you think this is all going to shake out?

(Flickr photo by billselak)