The Common Core Standards promised a new day ... more intellectually challenging, more contemporary, valuing collaboration. But bolting on old-fashioned tests, intensified now by the assesssment consortia - that will be the standards' downfall. From the New York Times: 'Florida embraced the school accountability movement early and enthusiastically, but that was hard to remember at a parent meeting in a high school auditorium here not long ago. Parents railed at a system that they said was overrun by new tests coming from all levels — district, state and federal. Some wept as they described teenagers who take Xanax to cope with test stress, children who refuse to go to school and teachers who retire rather than promote a culture that seems to value testing over learning.' More here ...