Common Core standards come with a price tag. A recent report says that Common Core will cost the nation $80 billion, with $10 billion of that coming from the state of California alone.

“A California commission has just decided the technology costs for Common Core tests are an unfunded mandate, which will require state taxpayers to cough up approximately $4 billion more to local school districts,” according to Californian and former U.S. Department of Education official Ze’ev Wurman’s statement to The Federalist.

“This adds to the extra $3.5 billion the legislature gave schools for Common Core in spring 2015 and a separate infusion of $1.7 billion Gov. Jerry Brown snagged for Common Core spread across fiscal years 2014 and 2015. That makes a total of approximately $9.2 billion above and beyond existing tax expenditures Californians will pay to have Common Core injected into their state.”

"Expensive" would be an understatement in this situation. The mandate of Common Core in California is not only costing tax payers tons of money, butt it’s also not regarded as an effective standard of education by many. The report claims that most states are trying to separate their Common Core costs but it doesn’t appear to be enough to mask the sheer expense of the move.

“Based on empirical data these technology costs were assessed by the Commission to be at an annual $183/tested-student, or around $600M annually for the 3.3M students tested in California,” according to Wurman’s research.

“The current costs already reimbursed by the state were assessed at ~$25M, so the findings reflect an additional annual ~$580M for SBAC testing (or about $4 billions additional Common Core costs over 7 years).”

That’s a pretty hefty price for standards that have been at the center of heated debate since it’s introduction. Of course, with the upcoming 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, it has also become a controversial topic among the candidates—even Donald Trump seems to be against the CCS. So is Common Core really worth the expense?

Read the full story here.

Article by Navindra Persaud, Education World Contributor