I have been saying for some time that Common Core education standards could be the defining issue in the 2016 Republican presidential primary race, that could very well derail the candidacy of anyone who supports the highly unpopular education standards, and the testing that goes along with them.

The Common Core of Data (CCD) is a program of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics that annually collects fiscal and non-fiscal data about all public schools, public school districts and state education agencies in the United States. The data are supplied by state education agency officials and include information that describes schools and school districts, including name, address, and phone number; descriptive information about students and staff, including demographics; and fiscal data, including revenues and current expenditures.”– U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Back in June 2014, we caught up with soon-to-be Republican presidential candidate, Senator Marco Rubio, during a scheduled legislative meeting at the famed Gatorland family attraction park in Orlando, Florida, where the junior Senator told us that he was strongly against Common Core education standards and testing.

Here is what Rubio said:

And I am very concerned, and quite frankly opposed to any effort to try to create some sort of national curriculum standard and then try to leverage the power of the federal government’s funding to force states to adopt a certain curriculum standard. State and local levels are the best places to come up with curriculum reform, and its something the federal government shouldn’t be deeply involved in.-Senator Marco Rubio 

But while Rubio clearly opposes federal Common Core standards and testing, does he support or oppose Florida’s current “Common Core” education standards, which were recently renamed “Florida Standards” due to of all of the push-back legislators received from concerned Floridians?

Then-Governor Jeb Bush, who has made education reform his life’s work, has been hounded by grassroots activists for his unabated support for Common Core and championed these Florida education standards while Rubio was in the Florida House of Representatives.

Remember, Rubio, who says he supports state-based curriculum reform, and not Common Core, left the Florida House in May 2008, and the Common Core initiative didn’t begin until 2009.

So, what was Rubio’s take on  standards testing while he was in the Florida House?

In his 2007 book, “100 Innovative Ideas For Florida’s Future,” Rubio states his support for a 11th grade test that current Florida Governor Rick Scott recently blocked via executive action due to the immense public dissatisfaction with standards testing in the state.

“[A]s we raise the bar, we must add eleventh and twelfth grade examinations.”-Marco Rubio (100 Innovative Ideas For Florida’s Future)

Here is what Rubio told reporters on Monday about education standards testing in Florida:

“I have a lot of teachers in my family. They think so,” Rubio said. “But I do believe it’s important that we have a standard that we measure student gains by.”

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But Rubio went a bit further, stating that the Florida Legislature would not accept any less than the best curriculum offered by other top world countries. Rubio added that he and the Legislature would “demand detailed, sequenced, content-oriented core reading, math, and science curricular standards and industry driven technical content” within Florida’s current K -12 system.

Rubio’s “Idea 2” of his book calls for the replacement of the Sunshine State standards with a new “world class curriculum.”

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Rubio’s  “Idea 3” calls for “end-of-course” testing that would match current education standards.

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Again, Rubio supports state level curriculum reform and testing and opposes federal Common Core standards and testing. But does this state level curriculum reform he supports mirror some, or several federal Common Core ideas and principles?