The Common Core education standards are sweeping the nation, but so is another phenomenon not anticipated by supporters of the controversial teaching program — declining test scores.

Scores on the math section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress slipped among fourth- and eighth-graders this year for the first time since testing began in 1990. In addition, there was an overall decline in eighth-grade reading scores.

While the fall in NAEP scores can’t be put down solely to Common Core, the new and often confusing standards “certainly haven’t helped,” according to Mary Claire Reim of the Heritage Foundation.

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Reim highlighted that of the four states that never adopted Common Core — Alaska, Nebraska, Virginia, and Texas — three saw no decrease in average NAEP scores.

That Common Core may be partly responsible for such a drastic drop in math scores is hardly surprising.

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Math is the subject that underwent the most radical changes through Common Core in terms of the way it is taught. Basic arithmetic was abandoned for overly complex, verbose reasoning problems and given to children with little to no experience with such questions.

In 2005, for example, New York State Learning Standards required fourth-graders to, “find the area of a rectangle by counting the number of squares needed to cover it.” However, the state’s Common Core standards on the same topic required third-graders — third-graders — to, “use tiling to show in a concrete case that the area of a rectangle with whole number side lengths a and b+c is the sum of a*c and b*c” and to “use area models to represent the distributive property in mathematical reasoning.”

While eighth-grade math scores decreased across all demographic groups, the drop in fourth-grade math scores occurred uniquely among white students, and in towns and rural areas.

It is possible this drop is partially the result of the massive increase in Hispanic immigration over the past few years and the strain this increase places on educational resources.

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While more conclusive research is needed, it is possible this drop is partially the result of the massive increase in Hispanic immigration over the past few years and the strain this increase places on educational resources.

Immigrant children not only cost more to educate — largely due to a lack of English proficiency — but there are also on average more children per immigrant household. These children are statistically more likely to rely on public schools, according to a report by Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies. Furthermore, these immigrant children come from low-income families, or in the case of unaccompanied immigrant children — most of whom were relocated into towns and rural areas — no family at all. The result is a massive increase in the number of students attending public school without a corresponding increase in available tax revenue needed to pay for them.

Speaking at a news conference last year hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, Mayor Judith Kennedy, of Lynn, Massachusetts, said, “it’s gotten to the point where the school system is overwhelmed … the city’s budget is being sustainably altered in order to accommodate in (sic) the school department.”

Lynn, Massachusetts is not unique. School districts across the country are struggling to accommodate the increase in non-English speaking students, with some finding almost half of their entire budgets swallowed up by the endeavor. In 2014, the nationwide cost of dealing with unaccompanied illegal immigrant children was more than $761 million, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Logically, given the limited resources available for local communities to spend on education, as more money is needed to get newly arrived Hispanic students up to speed, there is subsequently less money — and time — available to spend on educating American children and preparing them for standardized testing. This could explain the drop in math scores among white children in towns and rural areas.

If so, things may get worse still, because neither illegal immigration nor Common Core are going away soon.