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Common Core tests for academic learning. Social and emotional learning occur whether there are schools or not. Non-academic learning occurs at home, in the family, in the community, at the mall and in the park, outside of school and in school as well, whether or not it is formally taught. What we want schools to do is to teach those aspects of our culture that children will not get otherwise: history, math, writing.
Do you remember "Hooked on Phonics"? That industry developed as a result of the whole-language fad; the failed theory of learning whereby children ceased receiving phonetic instruction in school. Parents took up the slack and began teaching phonics at home. Kumon Schools found a place in our communities when schools abandoned rote practice. And as schools have stopped teaching handwriting, I expect to see some private entrepreneur take advantage of that failure.
Common Core is an attempt to insure that educators teach something - something! - other than emotional and social skills. It offers a description at the lowest level of what that "something" is, as well as an expectation that it will be taught throughout the nation. It establishes the right of children to learn certain things and the obligation of educators to teach them - no more cotton-headed, "We don't teach math; we teach children." With Common Core, educators now understand that it is their responsibility to teach children math, history and whatever else constitutes children's rightful heritage as Americans.