ALBANY, N.Y. – In his quest to pave the way for the nationalized standards experiment, Common Core money man Bill Gates bought the cooperation of numerous public education influencers, including think tank officials and teacher union leaders. But there’s one group Gates apparently forgot to buy off: students.

Gates may live to regret that oversight.

CapitalNewYork.com reports that a group of New York high school students gathered in the state capitol last weekend to experience the legislative process first-hand. To that end, the students “debated real bills on the Assembly floor, including one that would withdraw New York from the Common Core as well as the federal Race to the Top grant competition.”

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The anti-Common Core bill passed “overwhelmingly,” the news site adds.

Irma Valverde, one of the participants, said students were “looking forward” to debating the bill because it’s such a hot topic in their state.

“Unfortunately, all the kids in the mock Assembly have seen their teachers and their siblings struggling with the Common Core. Everyone was very disturbed,” Valverde told CapitalNewYork.com.

The actual Common Core withdrawal bill that students “approved” is sponsored by state Rep. Al Graf. But Graf’s legislation reportedly has no chance of reaching the floor of the Assembly.

That prompted the Republican lawmaker to quip that high school students “have more common sense than the people in this house.”

It’s easy to dismiss the high schoolers’ mock vote as a lighthearted and ultimately unimportant event. And in most ways, it is.

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But keep in mind that New York schools – along with those in Kentucky – are a year ahead of the rest of the nation in implementing Common Core. That means these students have an intimate understanding of how the K-12 overhaul has causes confusion and frustration in the classroom.

Simply put, they’ve seen Common Core up close and personal – and they don’t like it one bit.

We acknowledge that there’s nothing inherently wrong with students, teachers and parents feeling frustrated and confused by a set of new K-12 policies. Any meaningful change will produce those kinds of reactions.

However, the benefits of Common Core are all theoretical at this point. The learning standards were not field-tested anywhere in the U.S. before they were forced into most of the nation’s public school classrooms.

That makes Common Core an experiment. And like any experiment in the early stages, it’s impossible to know what the long-term impact is going to be.

Perhaps lawmakers in other states should pay attention to what this group of New York students has to say about the Common Core before subjecting an entire generation of students to it.