The Fall issue of AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice includes a commentary of mine on the common core standards. This article gives me more space to lay out my views and bring evidence to support them than the Op-ed piece published in Detroit Free Press. The issue also includes a thoughtful editorial on standards. You can read the entire issue here and my article starts from page 46.
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Yesterday(September 24, 2009)  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan delivered his first major speech about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 1965. The law’s last reauthorization took place in 2002 and resulted in what is known today as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In his speech, Duncan acknowledged that NCLB has significant flaws and promised to work with Congress to correct the problems. But based on this and his previous speeches as well as the actions of the US Department of Education under his leadership, I must …

On August 6th, the Missouri State Board of Education voted to join the Common Standards Initiative. This means that only three states (Alaska, South Carolina, and Texas) are not part of this national movement. Unless something happens right now, the U.S. will enter a new era of education marked by standards. The traditional strengths of American education, which have already been eroded by NCLB, will be further damaged by these standards. And the damages may not be reversable.
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One of the selling points of common academic standards for all states in the US is that they will ensure equity and fairness in the education a child receives, wherever he or she lives. But this is false advertisement.
First, the quality of education a child receives depends on the quality of his teachers, his school leaders, his friends, his family, and his neighborhood. If a school does not have high quality staff and leaders, no matter how high the bar is set at, the student will not receive the same …

It seems that the U.S. will soon have national education standards that will be adopted and implemented in most of the nation. This is a very significant political victory for the national standards proponents, who have been working on it for over two decades. The first President Bush and President Clinton tried it but failed. Now President Obama will have it without even having to convince Congress or the nation, as he is trying with health care reform. This is the part that is strange and not right—something that will …