Sights like these could be commonplace in Common Core classrooms. (Flickr/Brad Flickinger)

The fiercest political battleground in America is a grade school classroom.

As the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) debates how to properly spend a one-time $113 million fund for facilitating the switch to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the city has found itself embroiled in a national debate about the controversial standards.

For many outside the political maelstrom, Common Core remains a mystery. The standards-based education reform is just starting rollout in most states and much of the early discussion centered around the initiative was too involved and esoteric for people outside of the educational field.

Once you begin to peel away the layers of educational jargon, the mission of Common Core is deceptively simple – to address a decade of public education failure. However, its path from inception to implementation is one of intrigue.

With its passage in 2001, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act left an indelible mark on public education. It created a culture of accountability for educators, but fostered an environment in which instructors taught to testing metrics, not skill level.

In January of 2012, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing distributed data that concluded “NCLB severely damaged educational quality and equity by narrowing the curriculum in many schools and focusing attention on the limited skills standardized tests measure.” 

“These negative effects fell most heavily on classrooms serving low-income and minority children,” the advocacy group added.

NCLB created an entire generation of students ill-prepared for the rigors of college or the real world. Data from the College Board published in 2012 revealed the lowest SAT reading scores since 1972. Findings published by ACT in 2012 exposed that more than a quarter of high school students met none of the benchmarks for college readiness.

In 2012, Pearson ranked the United States 17th in its assessment of global education systems, despite spending fourth most in the world on education per student.

The figures were not a surprise to the National Governor’s Association (NGA), which had already begun brainstorming solutions to the public education crisis back in 2008. It was one of several organizations that developed Common Core as an attempt to address to one of the major failings of NCLB: the lack of common educational standards across state lines.

Despite an increased amount of standardized testing, public education standards varied wildly by state and the quality of education between states was exacerbated by NCLB. The lack of uniform standards was one reason for dramatic educational disparity from state to state.

Common Core was developed in concert with several organizations to enforce a strict, constantly evolving set of educational standards that all states would have to abide by. Failure to do so could threaten funding and an entire cottage industry has been erected to execute the standards. In theory, the program will afford students the same skills regardless of geographic location and better prepare them for a global economy.

The standards are designed to teach students non-fiction alongside literature, enforce more rigorous reading standards, promote communication technologies, map out long-term development strategies for mathematics and emphasize critical thinking skills.

The end result is a demanding set of college and career standards, which the Common Core will also measure against international benchmarks.

When Common Core is referenced, it is most often in connection to the NGA or the Council for Chief School Officers (CCSSO), but the standards initiative was also developed by a nonprofit organization called Student Achievement Partners. All three have something in common: millions of dollars in financial assistance from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gates is an outspoken advocate of education reform and has a vested financial interest in Common Core. His foundation has poured millions of dollars into trying to reform public education for years.

According to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grants database, the foundation gave the NGA $1.3 million in February of 2011 specifically "to work with state policymakers on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, with special attention to effective resource reallocation to ensure complete execution, as well as rethinking state policies on teacher effectiveness."

Grants like these, with highly political objectives, have mobilized opponents to attack the public narrative of Common Core as a state-led initiative. Other critics have serious reservations about the influence of Gates' money on educational policy.

In such a divisive political environment, Common Core might have died during incubation, but its development shortly after the on start of the economic crisis turned out to be advantageous.  As states began to slash funding for public education in the name of austerity, Common Core emerged as a solution.

When President Barack Obama announced $4.35 billion worth of funds for public education as part of his “Race to the Top” initiative in 2009, cash-strapped states quickly clawed over one another for applications. There was one catch – all applicants would have to comply with Common Core standards.

47 out of 50 states quickly signed off on Common Core.

California was one of the finalists of “Race to the Top,” and has been actively preparing for the switch to Common Core standards ever since. LAUSD recently appropriated $113 million in funds to help implement the standards, the vast majority of which will go towards training educators.

Common Core is part of a broader effort to reform a public school district where one-in-three students do not finish high school. Earlier this month, LAUSD began to rollout a $30 million program that will provide 30,000 iPads to 47 campuses. The tablet devices are seen as integral to LAUSD’s plan for testing Common Core standards.

SEE ALSO: Apple To Provide 30,000 iPads to 47 L.A. Schools

Nevertheless, these are tough times for Common Core advocates.

The political rhetoric over Common Core has become increasingly heated in recent days. Opponents of the state standards have begun to galvanize against what they see as a federal takeover of the classroom. 

Pundits squirm at the corporate tentacles interwoven into the Common Core standards. Educators are concerned about implementing an unproven curriculum. Local politicians worry that they have been handcuffed to standards they have no control of.

It is all part of a cloud of uncertainty that hangs over the standards initiative as Californians brace for its implementation.

Over the course of the next several weeks, Neon Tommy will dismantle the mystifcation built around Common Core with a series that delves into the hopes, criticisms and concerns with everyone involved - as Los Angeles residents, parents and the rest of the nation grapple with the biggest change to public education in over a decade.

Reach reporter Will Federman here or tweet him at @wfederman.