mmon Core standards. In Florida, Governor Scott withdrew the state from a consortium that was developing the standards, while his predecessor and Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, embraced the principles of the Common Core.
How much of the opposition to the Common Core is associated with its name? To find out, the UF Survey Research Center included a survey experiment in an October 2014 statewide poll, in which half of the respondents were asked one of two versions:
Some people believe that Florida should join with other states in forming the Common Core to establish high-quality academic standards in math and English that are consistent from state to state, while others believe that Florida should opt out of the Common Core and maintain its own standards for academic achievement in elementary and secondary schools. Do you support Florida joining Common Core, or opting out of Common Core? Or haven’t you thought much about this?
Some people believe that Florida should join with other states in establishing consistent high quality academic standards in math and English, while others believe that Florida should maintain its own standards for academic achievement in elementary and secondary schools. Do you support joining with other states, or maintaining Florida’s own standards? Or haven’t you thought much about this?
The idea of joining with other states to establish consistent standards received plurality support among likely voters who heard the question without the Common Core label. As shown in Figure 1, 42.9% of those voters thought that Florida should join with other states, 31.8% thought Florida should maintain its own standards, and 25.3% said that they hadn’t thought much about the issue or “don’t know.” Though there is significant opposition, joining with other states to establish high educational standards is appealing to a plurality of Floridians.
However, when asked with the Common Core label, support for cooperation with other states declines significantly. Among those respondents, only 28.2% favored joining with other states in the Common Core, a decrease of 14.7 percentage points from support with the unlabeled question. Somewhat surprisingly, the addition of the “Common Core” cue actually increased the proportion of voters who “haven’t thought much about the issue” (or didn’t know) by 10.5 points to 35.8%. Over a third (36.0%) of likely voters supported “opting out,” which was 4.2 percentage points higher than the equivalent choice of Florida maintaining its own standards offered in the unlabeled question.
As expected, the differences in responses attributable to question wording varies widely by level of education. Figure 2 shows that the Common Core label reduces support for joining with other states among respondents in all education categories, but the effect of question wording is mitigated among respondents with higher levels of education. Among college graduates, the difference between the two questions in support for joining with other states is 5.1 points. Among those who report some college education, the difference is 18.2 percentage points, while among those with no more than a high school degree, the difference is 29.9 points (though the sample size is fairly small in the latter category). College graduates apparently are more likely to recognize that the goals of the Common Core means joining with other states in establishing high academic standards, and they are not as likely to be swayed by changes in question wording.
Reflecting the fact that much (though not all) of the recent criticism of the Common Core has come from conservative groups, Figure 3 shows that support for joining with other states is highest among Democrats and lowest among Republicans, with Independents in between. The question wording with the Common Core label lowers support for joining with other states among all three groups, but the effect of question wording is strongest among Independents, who showed a 21.9-point difference in opinion between the two questions. Republicans and Democrats had differences of 13.0 