Over the past year, the nation's governors and state school chiefs have achieved laudable consensus around a set of math and English standards, developed voluntarily and without federal involvement through the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). Most states have signed on to them. More recently, the states have again teamed up--this time with federal funding--to develop new assessment systems that align with the common standards. What happens next? This is an enormously consequential question for American education, because charting the future of the Common Core (and the forthcoming assessments) is inseparable from some fundamental decisions about how the K-12 education system will be organized and governed. The authors asked experts from across the education sector to respond to a dozen perplexing questions on the future of the Common Core. They synthesize some of their collective input below. All final judgments, however, are solely those of the authors. The authors agree with Andy Rotherham that the three "essential elements" of any long-term Common Core governance arrangement are "independence, representation, and transparency." But what form should it take and how should it evolve? After examining the many tasks that must be successfully undertaken if the Common Core standards are themselves to succeed, this paper lays out three different governance models: (1) "Let's Become More Like France"; (2) "Don't Rock the Boat"; and (3) "One Foot before the Other." In the end, the authors call for a version of Model #3--a Common Core Coordinating Council ("4C," or even "Foresee")--that plays a temporary information-sharing and facilitation role but might morph into something more ambitious (and more permanent) over time. Partial List of Questionnaire Respondents is appended. (Contains 1 table and 4 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Paul E. Barton, Jeb Bush, David T. Conley, Pasquale J. DeVito, David P. Driscoll, Michael W. Kirst, Paul E. Lingenfelter, Paul Manna, Neal McCluskey, Mark Musick, Rod Paige, Judith A. Rizzo, Andrew J. Rotherham, Mark Schneider, Robert B. Schwartz, Eric J. Smith, Michael D. Usdan, and Gene Wilhoit.]