Diane Ravitch’s July New York Times essay, The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students, lacks the nuance educators need to lead with as we confront the layperson’s hasty coupling of standardized tests with standards. Some of Ravitch’s criticisms are accurate: the detrimental effects of NCLB through punishment of “failing schools”; misguided firings of teachers and closings of schools; the persistent achievement gaps among disparate socioeconomic and racial groups. But s