Common Core, in theory, isn't a problem - unifying standards across schools has a lot of benefits (easier to design reusable curriculums, perform scientific inquiries, develop software). The problem is when it gets conflated with high-stakes testing, which is a terrible thing.

High-stakes testing need not be terrible. You just have to be careful:

1. High-stakes testing requires exam security. One must assume that the teachers and administrators, if rated on student performance, will assist cheating.

2. High-stakes testing should be spread out across the year, with the result being a running average that discards the low values. (sickness and other bad luck should not be punished) Instead of a week or two of solid testing, do an hour every other week.

3. Tests should not come from companies that sell textbooks. This is a conflict of interest. It's not good to have an incentive to use non-standard terminology to give an advantage to schools which purchase the matching book.

4. If you can't test something, and you don't mandate hours for it, it will be removed from the schedule. Ideally you'd test for everything, but testing some subjects (band, shop) is difficult. The hours must be mandated to protect the untestable subjects.

5. You get what you test for. (see #4 above) High-quality tests are a must. It shouldn't be practical to cram for a test.

You did not talk about the necessity of unlinking the results of high-stakes testing and the funding for schools/teachers/districts. Or at the very least, to not penalize low-income areas for low test scores by stripping their budget, since that will only make the situation worse. If anything, more resources should flow to areas with lower test scores, even though the opposite happens (or they just flow to charter schools, which are not a great idea either).

Look beyond the mechanical aspects of the problem, and consider the ramifications of testing within the education system as a whole.

Testing is designed to fail schools and break the unions by introducing charter schools.

Charter Schools enjoy the benefits of government bonding along with the benefits of making the owners wealthy.

I don't see any reason why the two should be mutually exclusive

It's more like an ordering: improving teacher skill should come before forcing them into a system.

Common core is _what_ they should be teaching. Soft skills is _how_ they should be teaching.

I'm fine if you want to hate on the Common Core like so many, but these points are so completely unrelated this argument doesn't make any sense. We aren't min/maxing teachers like we would with our character in an MMORPG, these are human people.

ltr: no one is hating on common core.