Recently forty-six states and the District of Columbia announced an effort to establish common standards for what children should learn each year, from kindergarten through high school.  This push towards a national yardstick is led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Once the standards are agreed upon, participation is supposed to be voluntary. But for how long? Only the governors of Texas, Alaska, Missouri, and South Carolina have not signed on and three of these leaders are known skeptics of national mandates.

 The country has been moving toward a centrally-controlled education system for decades. Beginning in the 90's, Congress enacted three successive pieces of legislation, each of which significantly increased federal control of public schools: First, Goals 2000.  Then, School-to-Work.   And, finally, the National Investment Opportunity (or Careers) Act. In each bill federal funding was increased as an incentive for states to adopt federal mandates that advanced the very-practical-sounding cause called Workforce Development. The idea here is to teach students the skills needed to be successful in the workplace. Some school districts have balked at the curricular changes that have gradually shifted focus from basics and classics to the shaping of attitudes.  Good for them.

 The latest federal education bill, President Bush's No Child Left Behind, added a major accountability component.      But, because Republicans have always been skeptical of national standards for education, states retained the ability to write their own. According to President Obama's Secretary of  Education Arnie Duncan, that hasn't worked out so well. The system provides a perverse incentive for states to show good results at the expense of really teaching kids something.         He says we're  "...lying to children and their parents because states have dumbed down their standards."   

 The answer to the very real problems in our educational system is not to make education more monolithic. Every shift in educational policymaking that moves decisions away from the local level, toward the state, and then to the federal level tips the system toward the lowest common denominator.  The latest Program for International Student Assessment ranks U.S. students 25^th out of 30 advanced nations in math and 24^th in science. A report released in April by McKinsey and Company concludes that, "...the longer American children are in school the worse they perform compared to their international peers."

 In his March 23^rd Newsweek column George Will affirmed an estimate that, "...about 90 percent of the differences among schools in average proficiency can be explained by five factors - number of days absent from school, amount of television watched in the home, number of pages read for homework, quantity and quality of reading matter in the home, and..."  one more.  Will writes that by far the most important factor is the presence of two parents in the home.  Government can't do much about those variables.  

But what it should not do is implement a national curriculum.