The Common Core is slowly but surely becoming a big national issue, and three things in today’s news tell us a lot about what’s going on.

• It is a major story – it was a lead Politico article this morning – that the National Education Association, after steadily, if quietly, backing the Core, yesterday slugged it. At least, President Dennis Van Roekel came out with guns blazing against the implementation of the Core, saying that in many states “implementation has been completely botched,” and calling for a slowdown in the Core rollout. To be sure, Van Roekel didn’t suddenly say the Core is poor‐​quality standards, but implementation is absolutely key, and it is there that experts across the spectrum have long been crushing the Core.

• With the tide increasingly turning against them, Core advocates are no longer napping, feeling secure in the fact that Washington got a large majority of states to sign on to the Core before anyone really knew what was happening. This morning, news came out about survey results from the Core‐​supporting 50CAN. A big takeaway, according to 50CAN? Most people don’t know much about the Common Core, but would like it if they did: a sizeable majority support the idea of uniform standards. That’s probably accurate – in the abstract, one standard sounds nice – but what is more telling is the response to whether people trust policymakers in DC “to determine what is best for improving schools.” Only 17 percent either “strongly” or “somewhat” trust Washington. Eighty percent “do not trust” DC. Maybe that’s why Core‐​ites seem hell‐​bent on ignoring the crucial role Washington had, through the Race to the Top contest and No Child Left Behind waivers, in coercing Core adoption. So uniform standards may seem nice, but federally driven? Ick! Which brings us to our last story…

• It was reported today that Missouri State Representative Mike Lair put an $8 provision into an appropriations bill to purchase “two rolls of high density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/​or black helicopter mind reading and control technology.” This was meant to be a riproarious slap at Common Core opponents, whom Core advocates insist on tarring as kooks for fearing stuff like nationalization of school curricula. And they may, indeed, seem crazy to you if you refuse to acknowledge that the federal government, at the behest of the “state” groups that created the Core, coerced adoption. And if you ignore that Washington selected and funded two consortia to create tests to go with the Core. And if you are unaware that the U.S. Department of Education has a “technical review” panel for those tests that meets behind closed doors. And if you forgot that the federal government still requires, though it has loosened the rules, that schools be judged in part on state test performance. Yes, if you ignore reality, you could conclude that Core opponents are bonkers. But if you know and accept reality, then you know that far from being crazy, opposition to the Core is based, to a large degree, on logic and facts. Which means few at whom Rep. Lair is aiming his little joke are going to be making a chapeau with the free foil. At most, they’re going to put it to good use and make a burrito wrapper, or a solar oven, or are just going to throw it back at Rep. Lair, yelling, “stop calling me crazy, and stop wasting my eight bucks!”