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Lest supporters of the Common Core State Standards were feeling any tremors of vocal opponents around the country, a group of 500 business, community, education and parents groups came together on Sunday to offer their unequivocal support for the new testing regime in California.

Under the banner of Children Now, a statewide advocacy group for the youngest among us, the groups put their names to a full-page ad in this past Sunday’s Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee.

“We support Common Core,” was the simple and overarching message.

Why the ad and why now?

“The presidential race is starting to heat up, and Common Core will be bandied about. We wanted to get ahead of it in the national conversation,” said Ted Lempert, a former state representative who is president of Children Now. “We wanted to say that all these groups are behind keeping the standards in place and addressing the implementation challenges.”

The ads are part of a larger campaign by Children Now to explain Common Core and its benefits to parents who might be wondering about them at a time Common Core opponents in other states are pushing back against using them.

California is one of 43 states that have adopted Common Core, a set of college- and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts/literacy and mathematics.