Ken Winograd suggested sharing a Washington Post article from last winter: Everything You Need to Know about the Common Core from Diane Ravitch. As Oregon embarks on Smarter Balanced assessments for all students this winter and spring, this article seems especially timely. Here’s a teaser quote from Ravitch: “My fears were confirmed by the Common Core tests. Wherever they have been implemented, they have caused a dramatic collapse of test scores. In state after state, the passing rates dropped by about 30%. This was not happenstance. This was failure by design. Let me explain.”