Jay Mathews writes in his “Class Struggle” column in the Washington Post (12/12) about the controversy between Education Secretary Arne Duncan and education officials in California over the state’s transition to Common Core-aligned standardized testing, noting that Duncan “had warned that California would be shortchanging students and their families if it held to its plan not to report school test averages next year.” Mathews writes that notwithstanding Duncan’s comments, parents who reached out to him “said Duncan was wrong.” Mathews writes that he suggested in a recent column that schools be given “a year’s respite from reporting state test results, while teachers adjusted to the new Common Core,” and that many parents agreed with him.