Peter Greene asks a simple, logical question: why are the Common Core standards written in stone? “Not just stone, but stone mounted in cement crazy-glued to bedrock all sealed in amber.”

The Common Core standards are copyrighted. “…if you want to use them, you must do so as is, with not a single change. States may add up to 15% on top of what’s there, but they may not rewrite the CCSS in any way, shape, form, jot, tittle, or squib. States cannot adjust the standards a little to suit themselves. They cannot adapt them to fit local needs. They can’t touch them.”

Even more astonishingly, there is no process for revision or appeal.

In every field of activity “It is taken as an article of faith that any set of plans and policies will contain problems that will come to light after implementation, and there must be a method for course correction. Plus, a robust system must have a means of adjusting to new realities.

“Every system includes measures for adjusting and changing and correcting. School district strategic plans have processes in place for review and revision. IEPs for students have multiple methods for evaluating and adjusting process….Heck, the damn Constitution of the United States of America has a provision for proposing and implementing corrections and changes.

He adds:

“If you found what you considered to be a terrible mistake in the CCSS, there is no place you can call, no office you can contact, no form you can fill out, no appeal process you can appeal to, no meeting of the board you can attend to submit your comment, no set of representatives you can contact with your concern. There is nothing. The CCSS cannot be changed.”

Fortunately, there is no Common Core police to follow up and make sure that every state and district is doing exactly what the CC says they must at every minute. If a state or district actually makes changes, who will stop them? That would be an interesting case that is never likely to happen. If a high school teacher violates the CC mandates about what proportion of the course should be fiction and what proportion should be informational text, who will know? Will the principal stand outside the teacher’s classroom with a stopwatch? Who will be the timekeeper? Who will keep records for all teachers in all subjects? Will teachers get rated ineffective if they teach too much or too little fiction?

Did anyone think this through?

The problems with the Common Core are multiple. Many states are now experiencing a populist revolt against it, sometimes led by extremist groupss, sometimes (as in New York) led by responsible parents and veteran educators.

Support is strong and includes the Obama administration, major corporations, Republicans like Jeb Bush, and educators who like the new standards. Opposition is strong and spans the ideological spectrum, from parents who object to their complexity or to a federal takeover of standards to the Chicago Teachers Union and others who say the standards were developed in stealth, excluded classroom teachers and teachers knowledgeable about early childhood education and disabilities. Others are alarmed that the standards were pushed onto the states without discussion, without means of revising them, but as a condition of Race to the Top and waivers.

The battle over the Common Core has raged in several states. So e states has dropped their commitment to participate in the federally funded tests. At least one state–Oklahoma–wants to drop Common Core altogether.

What is the likely outcome of all this dissension?

No bold national idea has ever taken root in such contentious circumstances. For one thing, Common Core has thus far made its way based on promises, which may or may not be true. Will it raise achievement? Will it reduce achievement gaps? Will it prepare students to be college- and career-ready? Will it vault American students to the top of international competition? No one knows.

One thing we do know is that the transition to Common Core will be very expensive. Los Angeles, only one district, is spending $1 billion for iPads for Common Core testing. Common Core will be a bonanza for vendors but will bring with a high price that few districts or states can afford.

Given the controversy, which shows no sign of abating, and given the costs, what is the likely outcome?

Some states will drop the federal online testing. That is a good thing, because NAEP already provides state-to-state comparisons and has done so since 1992.

Some states will drop Common Core and use their old standards or write new ones. As Tom Loveless of Brookings has shown, standards don’t have a big effect; some states with high standards, like Massachusetts, still have big achievement gaps. Some states with excellent standards, like California, have low overall performance.

Loveless wrote in 2012:

“Similar stories can be told in many states. Standards have been a central activity of education reform for the past three decades. I have studied education reform and its implementation since I left the classroom in 1988. I don’t know of a single state that adopted standards, patted itself on the back, and considered the job done. Not one. States have tried numerous ways to better their schools through standards. And yet, good and bad standards and all of those in between, along with all of the implementation tools currently known to policymakers, have produced outcomes that indicate one thing: Standards do not matter very much.” He concluded: “On the basis of past experience with standards, the most reasonable prediction is that the common core will have little to no effect on student achievement.”

The likeliest outcome of the controversies today is that the Common Core will be adopted by some states, not by other. The federal tests will be used in some states, not others.

We are likely to end up with a natural experiment, in which we finally get the trials that the founders of Common Core preferred to avoid. We will be able to compare the progress of the states that are 100% Common Core aligned with other states.

The claims of the Common Core advocates will get an airing in real time, while those who oppose it will not be required to comply with its edicts.

And some day, maybe a decade from now, we will know more than we do today.

The New York Times reports today that the loss of handwriting skills may lead to the loss of cognitive development.

Maria Konnikova writes:

“Does handwriting matter?

“Not very much, according to many educators. The Common Core standards, which have been adopted in most states, call for teaching legible writing, but only in kindergarten and first grade. After that, the emphasis quickly shifts to proficiency on the keyboard.

“But psychologists and neuroscientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past. New evidence suggests that the links between handwriting and broader educational development run deep.

“Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write that matters — but how.

“When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. “There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain.

“And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize,” he continued. “Learning is made easier.”