We tried No Child Left Behind. It flopped. Then Race To The Top. Same result. Now, Common Core has been floating around as the next big thing in “education reform.” But, hold on. Some of the better performing school districts are saying we don’t need it. Their students apparently do just fine without it. Doesn’t that suggest the real reason for poor student performance in the first place? The better performers are in the more affluent districts: Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino (and probably others). So where are our public schools “failing”.? Surprise, surprise, in the less affluent districts. That’s where the recession hit hardest, in the neighborhoods that were already struggling, those with less political influence, the first to take cuts in funding, where resources are most limited, which get the least experienced teachers, and where poverty, and poverty alone, is the primary factor in student education. So, it looks like “education reform” as it is with voter ID laws, is still a solution looking for a problem.