After 45 states initially adopted Common Core State Standards, a powerful grassroots backlash erupted from parents, teachers, and politicians across the ideological spectrum objecting to federal overreach, high-stakes testing, and the absence of public input in the standards' design. By 2014-2016 more than a dozen states had reversed adoptions or passed legislation distancing themselves from the standards. Gates publicly acknowledged the Foundation had been too top-down and failed to bring teachers and parents into the process — calling it a lesson in the limits of philanthropic influence on democratic institutions that prefer local control.