Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Why should Virginians care about Common Core standards? After all, Virginia is one of five states that did not sign onto Common Core. Well, as with most things, there exists a back door way of doing things. Even when states aren’t using the Common Core standards, they in effect still find themselves using the Common Core standards. Such is the case in Virginia.

An article published by the Virginian-Pilot says Virginia’s educational standards are shown to mirror the purpose of the Common Core standards. That seems appropriate since Virginia was a part of the committee to create the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The Virginia Department of Education and the Board of Education are revising academic standards to incorporate content from the Common Core State Standards into the Standards of Learning (SOLs). In doing so they say they are ensuring that expectations for teaching and learning in Virginia schools are comparable to those of the volu...