Massachusetts students, educators, and taxpayers went into the 4th of July weekend with much to celebrate about the future of K-12 education in their state. That’s right. The Supreme Judicial Court, in a unanimous decision, ruled that the Common Core question cannot appear on the ballot in November because it does not meet the requirement that all elements of a ballot question be “related or mutually dependent.”

“At the operational level, this petition joins a proposed policy of rejecting a particular set of curriculum standards, common core, with a proposed policy of increasing transparency in the standardized testing process at what is likely to be a greatly increased cost, regardless of the content of the curriculum standards used,” the justices wrote. “These are two separate public policy issues.”  (Masslive)

A dodged bullet indeed.

The question came out of a backlash over Common Core, perhaps one of the most misunderstood education initiatives of our time.  Add to that the cauldron of misinformation that defines a presidential campaign (especially this one!) and we have the potential for a perfect storm that could have led to the undoing of six years of tireless work by teachers, the  investment of many millions of dollars, and a set of academic standards that are working for students.

“This is a huge win for education,” said Linda Noonan, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, which has strongly backed Common Core. “This was from the start an unnecessary and potentially very costly drain of resources. Educators have spent almost six years working on and implementing the standards. The financial costs of repealing them would have been hundreds of millions of dollars that would have hit every city and town.” (Quote from Commonwealth Magazine)

While many were perfectly happy with Massachusetts education twenty years ago, we know that far too many students weren’t getting what they needed to be prepared for college and/or for a career. High college remediation rates and huge achievement gaps are evidence that despite its number one status when it comes to education, the Bay State has work to do in preparing all of its students for their futures after graduation from twelfth grade.

Common Core state standards are designed to do just that.