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Common Core Is Unpopular In Louisiana When You Call It Common Core, LSU Survey Finds
3/31/15 | New Orleans Times-Picayune

Behind the Headline
No Opinion on the Common Core
Winter 2015 | Education Next

In Louisiana, where Gov. Bobby Jindal wants the state legislature to drop the Common Core state standards in its upcoming legislative session, a survey finds high support for “generic” academic standards but lower support for the Common Core standards. The drop in support is greater for Republicans.

The most recent survey conducted by Education Next found the same thing to be true nationwide. As explained in an article about the 2014 EdNext survey

The words “Common Core” elicit greater antagonism than does the concept of common standards itself. We discovered this by asking one randomly chosen half of our respondents the same question as was posed to the other half, except that we dropped any specific mention of the Common Core. The difference in the questions posed to the two groups is in brackets below:

As you may know, in the last few years states have been deciding whether or not to use [the Common Core, which are] standards for reading and math that are the same across the states. In the states that have these standards, they will be used to hold public schools accountable for their performance. Do you support or oppose the use of these [the Common Core] standards in your state?

When the Common Core label is dropped from the question, support for the concept among the general public leaps from 53% to 68%. Significantly, the pronounced partisan polarization evoked by the phrase Common Core disappears when the question does not include those seemingly toxic words. The level of support among Republicans is 68%, virtually identical to the Democratic level of support. In other words, a broad consensus remains with respect to national standards, despite the fact that public debate over the Common Core has begun to polarize the public along partisan lines.

– Education Next