Common Core State Standards Initiative

If you have any thoughts on the Common Core State [educational] Standards initiative, they are open for public comment until Friday, 2 April 2010.

Common Core State Standards Initiative

Here are the comments I provided.

I am opposed to national standards for education, no matter how well thought out, from a couple of perspectives.

From a Constitutional perspective, education is not one of the enumerated powers of the federal government, and is clearly one of the many areas for which the entire responsibility falls to the states and the people.

Second, in any area, including education, in which the federal government sets standards, we lose some of the benefit of having 50 or more varying approaches in a real-life laboratory, so to speak, competing with each other to see which best serves the educational needs of students.

Third, and perhaps related to the second, the more that school curricula are driven by the people who are the primary stakeholders in all education -- the parents and the local communities -- the better.

The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) also has some thoughts here:

HSLDA: Common Core State Standards Initiative

and here:

HSLDA—Is Congress Moving Toward Nationalized Standards?