Revised State Standards Not That Good -- Let's Go National!

According to my friends (and occasional clients) over at the Fordham Foundation, state standards still suck ("C-" is the average grade) and now it's really time for national standards (The State of State Standards 2006).

The inevitable move to national standards could go four ways, according to the creative folks at Fordham -- "the whole enchilada" (aka everyone abandons local control), "if you build it, they will come" (aka what Clinton proposed and Vic Klatt killed in 1997), "let's all hold hands" (some sort of unholy cooperation among states that hate each other), and the most likely of the unlikely options, "sunshine and shame."

I'm not against national standards. I just don't see how we get from here to there in the current political environment. In large part, it boils down to whether Congress decides to strengthen or dilute NCLB next year. If Congress is in a diluting mood -- seems likely in the last years of Bush II 2 -- this probably won't happen.