The Rome - News Times (Georgia) June 7, 2010

HEADLINE: State studying national education standards

The Associated Press contributed to this report

A new set of education benchmarks released this week aims to make sure all American children are learning the same sort of information at the same time. Those standards, called the Common Core State Standards, are aimed at replacing a hodgepodge of educational goals varying wildly from state to state with a uniform set of expectations for students.

It's the first time states have joined together to establish what students should know by the time they graduate high school, and local school chiefs support the idea.

"Here is a case when you clearly have the best minds in education in America coming together to create a good set of standards," said Gayland Cooper, superintendent of Rome City Schools. "It's all good. I'm very much in favor of it."

Cooper said Georgia has been working for several years to stiffen standards for its students, but other states may have to step up their requirements to get on board. If they do, he said, students all across America stand to benefit. He also said the standards are really just a guideline, and schools will need rich curriculums and strong teaching to make sure the Common Core State Standards are successful.

Floyd County Superintendent Lynn Plunkett agreed with Cooper, saying she thinks Georgia teachers will be able to adjust more easily than the teachers in states in which there has not been a foundation already in place for standards-based instruction, such as the Georgia Performance Standards.

"The movement toward a national curriculum would have a tremendous impact on education in our country, both positive and negative. I like the idea that proficiency in math, for example, is the same for all students, as long as states still have the local control to enrich the curriculum," said Plunkett.

States are expected to use the standards to revise their curriculum and tests to make learning more uniform across the country, eliminating inequities in education not only between states but also among districts. The standards also will ensure students transferring to a school district in a different state won't be far behind their classmates or have to repeat classes because they are more advanced.

States that sign up are supposed to use the standards as a base on which to build their curricula and testing, but they can make their benchmarks tougher than Common Core. All but two states - Alaska and Texas - signed on to the original concept of Common Core more than a year ago.

Critics worry that the standards will basically nationalize public schools rather than letting states decide what is best for their students. Texas' commissioner of education, Robert Scott, has said the state didn't sign on to Common Core because it wants to preserve its "sovereign authority to determine what is appropriate for Texas children to learn in its public schools."

So far, the standards have been adopted by Kentucky, Hawaii, Maryland, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Another 40 states and Washington, D.C., have agreed to adopt the standards in coming months, said Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

The federal government was not involved but has encouraged the project, including adoption of the standards as part of the scoring in the U.S. Department of Education's "Race to the Top" grant competition.