The 21-member California State Content Standards Commission started the laborious process Tuesday of considering several dozen additions to the proposed national common-core English language arts standards.

Most of the additions are fine points – minor differences or omissions from California’s state standards that the commission’s staff are suggesting be added to bolster the “rigor” of common core. An example would be a sixth-grade requirement to analyze graphics and headlines in popular media — a standard found in California but not in common core. But in totality, the mound of changes will add complexity for teachers and could threaten the proposed common core standards’  readability and economy.

The writers of common core spent considerable time whittling down and weeding out some of what California may be putting back. That won’t become clear until the commission has waded through the proposed standards grade by grade, point by point. They still had 11 grades to go by adjournment on Tuesday.

Common core’s sponsors, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers are permitting states to add 15 percent more standards to common core. But there’s no hard way of measuring that and no clear punishment  for states that exceed the limit — other than docking points in the federal Race to the Top competition that California is unlikely to win anyway.

The commission will do an up or down vote on ELA today only after considering each proposed amendment. Then it will turn to common core math standards, which will be much more provocative, today and two days next week.