COEUR d'ALENE - Most top education officials in states that have adopted the Common Core standards don't think resistance to the math and English benchmarks will derail the effort, according to a new survey.

Released last week by the Center for Education Policy, a nonpartisan research organization at George Washington University, the survey also found that a majority of state education leaders would welcome federal aid, including funding, to help implement the standards.

Education officials in 40 of the 45 states that have adopted the core standards participated in the poll, although the report did not release the names of the states.

Idaho's state education department was one of the participating agencies.

Melissa McGrath, spokeswoman for the Idaho State Department of Education, said her office doesn't anticipate the decision to adopt the standards in Idaho will be reversed or changed.

"I think the newly formed Idahoans for Excellence in Education is a clear demonstration of the broad support across Idaho for the Idaho Core Standards," McGrath said, referring to a newly formed coalition comprising 18 groups statewide that represent parents, teachers, businesses and some state and local education officials.

Proponents say the core standards will elevate and align education benchmarks and increase academic rigor, prompting more students to attend college and be better prepared for careers.

But opponents say the standards were created without the input of local educators, and that they are a federal intrusion into state and local education systems.

Just two of the states surveyed responded that they did not want any federal assistance with implementation of the standards.

When asked if Idaho was one of the two states that indicated they would shun federal aid to carry out the core standards, McGrath told The Press:

"Idaho has been consistent in that the state will not accept any additional federal funding to assist in the implementation of the Idaho Core State Standards.

Since No Child Left Behind passed in 2002, the state has always used federal funding to administer statewide end-of-year assessments, like the ISAT, and the state will continue to do so in the future."

Roughly 80 percent of the funding for the Idaho Standards Achievement Test, or ISAT, is federal.

The Center for Education Policy report states that the only direct federal funding provided for the Common Core State Standards was $437.5 million in economic stimulus money to support the development of assessments aligned with the standards. The common assessment system is being developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, a partnership of 25 core standard states, including Idaho. The SBAC test will replace the ISAT in Idaho.

"The federal government does not help develop the assessment. The states that are part of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium are the only representatives who have a say in the development of the assessment," McGrath told The Press. "The U.S. Department of Education plays a similar role it has always played since No Child Left Behind passed in 2002. It makes sure every state assessment is valid and reliable, but it does not approve test questions or tests."

The core standards states signed a Memorandum of Agreement in 2009 committing to work toward the development and adoption of the standards. The Idaho agreement, signed by Gov. Butch Otter and state schools chief Tom Luna, can be downloaded from the state education department's website, www.sde.idaho.gov.

The memorandum makes it clear, McGrath said, that the federal government could provide incentives if states wanted to take advantage of them but otherwise couldn't be involved.

The agreement suggests the federal government could provide key financial support, and that it might be done through Race to the Top incentives and with federal stimulus funds available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Detractors of the core standards say Idaho and other states were coerced by the federal government into adopting the Common Core, in exchange for ARRA stimulus money and the Race to the Top federal grant dollars, before the standards were developed.

McGrath said that isn't so, that Idaho did not enter into any agreements with the federal government requiring future adoption of the standards.

"In its Race to the Top application, the state did describe that it was working on the development of the Common Core State Standards and hoped to use those standards to demonstrate college- and career-ready standards, but we also described the lengthy process we have at the state level to review and adopt standards and made it clear that we had to go through that process first," McGrath said.