Louisiana Legislative Auditor
Daryl G. Purpera, CPA, CFE

September 22, 2014

Overview of Common Core State Standards

The Legislative Auditor’s Office on Monday launched the first in a series of new reports known as “Issue Briefs” designed to provide non-partisan, detailed information on key issues confronting Louisiana.

“The purpose of these reports is to further meet our office's mission of providing unbiased, objective information to our stakeholders” Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera said.

The first topic selected for explanation was the Common Core State Standards. “The purpose of this brief is to explain how Common Core started, provide examples of the standards, explain the primary arguments for and against implementation of the standards, and describe what Louisiana and other states are doing related to Common Core,” the state auditor said.

The report said “although much has been written and debated about the standards in the past year, surveys continue to show that roughly half of Americans know either little or nothing at all about the issue.

“That includes Louisianans, as evidenced by the results of the spring 2014 Louisiana Survey, conducted by the LSU Public Policy Research Lab, which found that nearly one out of two Louisiana residents had not heard of Common Core.” The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education adopted the Common Core standards in 2010.

In a recent Gallup Poll nationwide, 53 percent of the respondents said they knew only a little or nothing about Common Core, while 47 percent said they were aware or knew much about Common Core. An Education Next Survey showed 43 percent of Americans sampled said they had heard of Common Core while 57 percent said they had not. Both polls were conducted in the May-June period.

Of the 46 states that officially adopted the Common Core standards, most did so between 2010 and 2012, although Minnesota adopted just the English language arts portion. Four states did not adopt the standards at all: Alaska, Texas, Virginia and Nebraska.

As the debate over Common Core has accelerated in recent years, legislators in Indiana and Oklahoma have repealed the standards for their states, and lawmakers in three other states have voted to repeal the standards effective after the 2014-15 school year. Those three states are Missouri, South Carolina and North Carolina. That will leave 41 of the original 46 states adhering to the Common Core standards.

Common Core 2014 release.pdf

For more information contact:

Legislative Auditor
225.339.3800



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Office of the Louisiana Legislative Auditor | www.LLA.La.gov