Over the past year, the nation's governors and state school chiefs have achieved laudable consensus around a set of math and English standards, developed voluntarily and without federal involvement through the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). Most states have signed on to them. More recently, the states have again teamed up--this…

Subject-matter experts reviewed the content, rigor, and clarity of the first public drafts of the "Common Core" standards released in September 2009 by the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) of the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers. Using the same criteria, the same experts also…

The push for a national curriculum is gaining momentum as reformers press states to acknowledge "world class" benchmarks for student achievement. The topic had been dormant since Clinton-era efforts to promote "voluntary national standards" yielded little more than charges of political correctness. With No Child Left Behind now…

After five years of experience with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and with reauthorization looming, it is time to draw some conclusions about how the act has actually unfolded--and how it ought to be changed. A new book from the AEI Press by Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn Jr., "No Remedy Left Behind: Lessons from A Half-Decade…

An argument is presented for a common core of basics for all students. In addition, national standards are considered within the contexts of a pluralistic society and societal goals. Costs and benefits of adopting national standards are examined in light of the experiences of other countries with centralized educational policies. (IAH)

Education policy leaders from across the political spectrum identified and evaluated four models that national standards and testing could take. These models are: (1) "The Whole Enchilada," the most direct and aggressive approach in which the federal government creates and enforces national standards and assessments, replacing the…

Standards-based reform has been America's premier education strategy for more than a decade. Its many backers seek stronger school and student performance and more equal opportunities for children, especially disadvantaged youngsters. Education is attracting more high-level attention and political energy than ever before. Yet standards-based…

Two-thirds of schoolchildren in America attend class in states with mediocre (or worse) expectations for what their students should learn. That's just one of the findings of Fordham's The State of State Standards 2006, which evaluates state academic standards. The average state grade is a "C-minus"--the same as six years earlier, even…

According to these authors, the federal government has pushed far too deeply into the routines and operations of the nation's public schools, now regulating everything from teacher credentials to the selection of reading programs. Ironically, the one way to extricate Washington from the minutiae of K-12 education is to give it more power in one…