On June 1, 2009, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) issued a press release stating that 49 states and territories had joined the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSS). That initiative proposed that all states voluntarily adopt the same set of curriculum standards and, eventually, submit to a national test, or at least a state test, aligned directly to those standards. Within months, many organizations, including the 16 education associations that make up the Learning First Alliance, pledged support for the yet untested initiative. In this essay, the author questions why educators have been so quick to support the common core state standards initiative. Some surprising data about how students of various countries have fared on international tests makes a case for questioning the reasoning behind this initiative.