Education standards do not flop spectacularly. Their failure gives rise to nothing like the black-and-white films of early aeronautical experiments: no missiles exploding on launch pads or planes tumbling from the sky. But 10 years after 46 of the 50 states adopted the Common Core standards, the lack of evidence that they have improved student achievement is nonetheless remarkable. Despite the fact that Common Core enjoyed the bipartisan support of policy elites and commanded vast financial resources from both public and private sources, it simply did not accomplish what its supporters had intended. The standards wasted both time and money and diverted those resources away from more promising pursuits. In this article, Tom Loveless discusses three studies that have sought to examine the effects of Common Core and, more generally, "college- and career-ready" standards on student learning. The picture that emerges does not inspire confidence. The evidence suggests student achievement is, at best, about where it would have been if Common Core had never been adopted, if the billions of dollars spent on implementation had never been spent, and if the countless hours of professional development inducing teachers to retool their lessons had never been imposed. [For "A Decade On, Assessing the Impact of National Standards Has Common Core Failed? Assessing the Impact of National Standards," see EJ1247174.]