February 22, 2010 4:12PM # PS: I Also Want to Take over Education By [Neal McCluskey](https://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey) --- SHARE Andrew already [blogged about it a bit](https://www.cato.org/2010/02/22/remember-when-national-standards-were-going-to-be-voluntary/), but overshadowed by the release of President Obama’s price-controlling health-insurance proposal was his [speech to the National Governors Association ](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/education/23educ.html)promoting the federal takeover of elementary and secondary school curricula. True, the White House would only require states to adopt some sort of “common” — not national and certainly not federal — standards to get federal funds, but don’t accept the semantic dodge: If the feds are paying, the standards will not only be national, but *federal*. Implicit in the President’s proposal, as well as the [rhetoric of many national-standards supporters](http://www.edexcellence.net/index.cfm/news_stars-by-which-to-navigate-scanning-national-and-international-standards-in-2009), is that national standards will necessarily be *high* standards that push improved academic achievement. Unfortunately, these people have chosen to ignore actual tests of that proposition. They can no longer: My latest Policy Analysis — [*Behind the Curtain: Assessing the Case for National Curriculum Standards* ](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11217)– reviews the theoretical and empirical literature and shows that there is simply no convincing evidence that national standards drive higher academic achievement. Couple that with federal meddling in education being[ clearly unconstitutional](https://www.cato.org/2009/12/18/sorry-to-keep-interrupting-your-folly-with-the-constitution-but/), and the next critical battle in the war against Leviathan seems to be shaping up. And this time, we could very well be fighting for our children’s minds. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).