Voters won't get chance to rescind Common Core this fall; court rejects proposed ballot question as too darn broad

The Supreme Judicial Court today tossed a November ballot question aimed at forcing Massachusetts to abandon a set of national educational standards known as Common Core .

The state's highest court ruled that the six-part question asked voters to approve things that weren't really related and so violates a requirement set by the state constitution that ballot questions ask voters to approve or reject just a single basic idea at a time.

Sections 1 through 3 may be said to share a common purpose: redefining the contents of the academic standards and curriculum frameworks for the Commonwealth's public schools. Section 4, however, which would amend § 1I to require annual publication of all the previous year's questions, constructed responses, and essays for each grade and core subject included in the mandatory diagnostic assessment tests, has the explicitly stated purpose of better informing educators about the assessment tests. Thus, the apparent goal of section 4 is to make more transparent the standardized diagnostic assessment tests and testing process required to be used in public education, and it is a goal that comes with a significant price tag: as the Attorney General agreed in oral argument before this court, implementing section 4 will require the development and creation of a completely new comprehensive diagnostic test every year, which means a substantial increase in annual expense for the board -- an expense to be borne by taxpayers and to be weighed by voters in determining whether increased transparency is worth the cost.15 An initiative petition properly may contain only subjects "which are related or which are mutually dependent."