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Cato Scholar Comments on Common Core State Standards

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Center for Educational Freedom:

There is nothing wrong with laying out suggestions for what the average child should know by a certain grade. But most kids aren't the average child, and the standards to be released today by the Common Core State Standards Initiative will not just be suggestions.

All kids are different. They grow, mature, and learn at different rates, and develop different talents and interests. In light of that obvious reality, to build an education system that treats all kids as if they are the same is insanity. That's probably why, simplistic rhetoric of national-standards advocates notwithstanding, research simply does not demonstrate that national standards lead to superior educational outcomes. And, no, adopting the Common Core standards is not voluntary. With states risking billions of federal dollars if they don't adopt them, the standards are for all intents and purposes federal standards, and their adoption mandatory.