The media and observers across the ideological spectrum were surprised and, in some cases, disconcerted in July 2014, when at the annual American Federation of Teachers (AFT) convention in Los Angeles, the union's leadership team announced that its Innovation Fund grants of $20,000 to $30,000 were going to be made available to state and local affiliates to critique the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the massive multistate effort to improve student achievement. "It's a sign that teachers are frustrated and fed up-and they're making their anger heard, loud and clear," opined a July "Politico" story about the new initiative. "This is a huge step because this time last year, they were gung-ho for Common Core," said Fordham University's Mark Naison, a critic of the standards, also in "Politico." David Menefee-Libey, a political scientist at Pomona College, went even further: "It's all blowing up."