New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo may be improving his overall standing with voters, but he’s not out of the woods yet. With education being a leading issue among New York State citizens, Common Core standards remains an especially contentious subject. As Capitol New York reports:

Statewide, 49 percent of voters said Common Core implementation should be stopped, compared to 33 percent who would like it to continue. But in New York City's suburbs and upstate areas, the margin widened, the poll found.

“While Democrats and New York City voters are closely divided on the issue of whether or not to continue implementing Common Core education standards, upstaters and downstate suburbanites want implementation stopped by about two-to-one, as do a majority of independents and a large majority of Republicans,” Siena spokesman Steve Greenberg said. 

During his State of the State address last week, Gov. Cuomo emphasized expanding school reforms, including ending or limiting the cap on public charter schools and offering tax credits for public school and private school scholarship donations.

These are good first steps, but what parents want is more individualized education options, not a one-size-fits-all Common Core. Expanding local control is a better policy path than centralized school planning—and it doesn’t get more local that parents empowered with education options.