Common core was not as big of a deal to the educators (at least more rural) as her support for Charter Schools. Charter schools would basically take the best students from a district and leave the "regular" school with what is left but the same expectations and less money. If you take the top 10% of students from a small school it would destroy that schools "grades" in a matter of seconds. They thrive, academics wise, off the the top few percent of students. If you have a class of 80-90 students and 6-8 score in the the high 20s or low 30s on the ACT or very well on EOI it really helps the school overall. Some students just don't care and mark "c" all the way down a test.
Our basic education problem IMHO is we try to educate everyone to go to college. I would be happy if the we could just teach the masses enough math to count my change back right or be able to figure out I get a quarter back from $1.77 when I give them $2.02. We compare ourselves to countries that separate out the students at an early age to academics or "craft"/trade school. Then we compare our selves to the academic student only population. All of our students can not compare to the top X% of their students.
We will have common core to some degree just like we now have outcome based education (90s hot topic). They will just stop talking about it or give it a different name.
Who ever said parental involvement was the difference hit the nail on the head.
Good post man.