Efficacy of Common Core State Standards tests

Before the end of next month, 5 million 3-to-11-grade students in 10 states in the U.S. will take standardized tests of CCSS (Common Core State Standards) which are designed to reform the US education and, most importantly, to spur the critical thinking. It's not surprising that many students complain that the tests are too hard since some of them lack the long-term training of critical thinking. Time will tell the efficacy of these national standardized tests since schools and teachers are partially held accountable for these testing results. Taiwan has no such accountability-embedded national standardized tests.