A majority of people oppose the Common Core State Standards, according to a new PDK/Gallop poll conducted among 1,001 American adults in May and June.

Sixty percent of those polled said they oppose they standards, in general because they think the standards limit teacher flexibility.

The poll, the 46th edition of PDK/Gallop’s survey of “the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools,” also found that more people know what the standards are than last year: 81 percent versus 38 percent. (Last year’s poll didn’t ask respondents about their support for the standards.)

The Common Core has been adopted by 43 states and Washington, D.C., and sets benchmarks for what children should to be successful in college and their careers. They’re designed to level the playing field and ensure equal access to quality education. The standards were developed by a couple of state coalitions — not the federal government, as some critics insinuate.

Hawaii began implementing the standards in some grades during the 2012-13 school year and fully implemented them in all grade levels last school year. Public school students across the state will take one of the Common Core-aligned assessments this year — Smarter Balanced — and their performance on those tests will factor into accountability measures such as teacher evaluations.

A majority of Hawaii’s public schools have already adopted Common Core-aligned digital materials. The state’s Common Core plan is largely contingent on classrooms’ shift to online learning, though that effort has gotten off to a rocky start because the department has failed to secure sufficient funding to equip every child with a digital device.

The PDK/Gallup poll also found that opinions about the Common Core reflect partisan divides. While 76 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of Independents said they oppose the standards, the percentage was 38 percent for Democrats. A slight majority of Democrats — 53 percent — support the standards; the percentage for Republicans was 17 percent.

That could help explain why resistance to the Common Core has been relatively subdued in Hawaii — at least compared with states such as Indiana and South Carolina, both of which ditched the standards after signing up for them.

“These standards must be guides, not straightjackets, and they must be decoupled from testing,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, in a statement. “Rather than a well-resourced, thoughtful implementation, with adjustments made when parents, teachers and kids have raised concerns, policymakers ignored the problems, opting instead to test, test, test.”

“Given this path, support will continue to drop as people no longer see standards or standardized tests as helping children,” continued Weingarten, noting that the AFT has supported the standards. “They, like many teachers, see them instead as setting up public education for failure.”

The Gates Foundation, a high-profile supporter of the standards that even bankrolled their development, in June called for a moratorium on the use of Common Core-aligned assessments in high-stakes decisions such as teacher evaluations.

The Hawaii DOE did not heed the recommendation.