U.S. News and World Report journalist Zach Miners reports:

A coalition of education leaders, advocacy groups, and teachers unions is pushing for the development of nationalized common academic standards, an oft-debated tool of education that has yet to be truly implemented. This new groundswell of support for common standards—which would create a single framework of material and skills for students to master in all 50 states and the District of Columbia—is signaling that national standards might be moving closer to reality.

My question is, why?

According to the article, advocates for national standards claim that in-order to prepare our students for a global economy a set of common standards is necessary. Furthermore, this coalition claims that the varying standards from state-to-state only leads to schools covering a multitude of topics, but only at cursory levels. Hence, their argument stresses that a common set of standards would provide a greater depth to topics by limiting the required topics.

Aren’t there other ways to achieve the same result?

There sure are. Try removing the standards altogether. When a state has chosen to enforce a specific standard the drop out rate increases. This is because certain people cannot do certain things. Fair enough, but since the majority of people can do it then we are all okay right? Wrong. For schools are held accountable for teaching to that standard and when students drop out of school, its the school that gets hit with the penalty. Therefore, schools focus on teaching to that standard. All student’s must reach that specific standard, regardless to the effect on all the other students. In the end, every student (who passes and does not still drop out) takes their standardized test and passes… yea! We all get an “A.” However, that “A” that we all get for passing said standard will only get you a “C” in real life. Why, you might ask? Because a “C” is average, and if everyone achieves to the level of a standard that makes everyone just average. Oh, and what about those who can excel far above said standard? They have no place to be fostered, for educators need to focus on the under achievers.

We need to recognize that not everyone is able to meet a standard. When congress and the National Department of Education realize this, possibly then true reform is possible. For all that national standards will do is ruin American education from the inside out.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-education/2009/05/11/should-all-states-meet-the-same-education-standards.html

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