Grammar instruction may have waned in some classrooms starting in the early 2000s, largely because the high-stakes tests required by the No Child Left Behind law didn’t assess grammar specifically.

Stephen Colbert mocked it. Comedian Louis C.K. called it a “massive stress ball that hangs over the whole school.” And lawmakers in state capitols spent countless hours ...

To briefly summarize Common Core, the decision to adopt the Common Core standards was left almost exclusively in the hands of the governors and the state boards of education. The public was not made ...