WASHINGTON, D.C.  – The nationalized K-12 experiment known as Common Core seems to be the Miley Cyrus of the public policy world: The older it gets and the more people see of it, the more repulsive people find it to be.

Inquiring minds want to know: Why is Common Core – which is approaching its fifth birthday – becoming more hated with each passing year?

Education scholar Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, offers a few ideas in a recent Education Week column.

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Hess writes that Common Core has become more unpopular in the last few years because the “mainstream media” didn’t do much reporting on the education overhaul until 2012 – when implementation of the one-size-fits-all learning standards was already well underway in 45 states.

In other words, many people didn’t know about – and start opposing – Common Core until recently.

Hess backs up his assertion with research. Using the LexisNexis database of media stories, Hess and AEI colleague Michael McShane discovered that U.S. news outlets mentioned the term ‘Common Core’ 453 times in 2009, 1,729 times in 2010, 2,313 times in 2011 and 7,800 times in 2012.

“Last year, in 2013, the media discovered the Common Core, with 26,401 mentions – or more than 10 times the number of stories from 2009 and 2010 combined,” Hess writes.

By way of comparison, Hess and McShane found that U.S. media outlets spent much more time reporting on school vouchers during 2009, 2010 and 2011 – even though voucher programs only benefit a tiny handful of students, compared to the  40-50 million American students whose education is being transformed by Common Core.

One of Hess’ conclusions is “that the mainstream media dropped the ball” in its duty to inform (or perhaps warn) parents about the top-to-bottom school overhaul.

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The sad truth is that America’s media workers (few these days deserve the dignity of being called journalists) like stories that contain conflict. Such stories are very easy to write for the lazy and ignorant media workers, and they elicit a strong reaction from the audience. Put another way, the media gets a large return on a small investment when they report on controversies.

That’s the reason media workers did more reporting about school vouchers than Common Core from 2009 to 2011. Few topics get the blood pumping like a debate about “the separation of church and state,” which is the central issue of every school voucher proposal ever proposed.

The only reason the media workers started reporting on Common Core heavily in 2012 was because the education overhaul was starting to manifest itself in classrooms. The media workers started paying attention to the story when the standards started causing angst among parents, students and teachers.

It’s as simple – and pathetic – as that.

The media deserve a large portion of the blame, but not all of it.

Hess points out that the media didn’t pursue the Common Core story partly because the powers behind it “were trying to keep their efforts below the radar in 2009, 2010, and 2011.”

“Indeed, personal conversations and communications left me confident that this quiet strategy was intentional,” Hess writes. “Now, supporters had every right to adopt that approach, but the bottom line is that stealth is not a good strategy for pursuing fundamental, sustainable change to 100,000 schools educating 50 million other people’s children.”

We’d argue against Hess’ assertion that state school boards – working with the National Governors Association, Bill Gates and various other self-important busybodies – had the right to sneak Common Core into classrooms when nobody was paying attention. This is still a representative democracy in which leaders are supposed to work for the citizens, not the other way around.

We’d also point out that the media exists – and enjoys explicit protection under the First Amendment – because it’s supposed to be the watchdog that holds the powerful accountable. The powerful will always try to slip one by on the people, which is why Americans need a vibrant news media.

Unfortunately, we don’t have one anymore. If it weren’t for the Internet, there’s little doubt this Common Core experiment would not only be solidly in place, but schools would be in the process of implementing the forthcoming nationalized learning standards for science and social studies, as well.