Maria Glod of the Washington Post reports that 46 states and the District of Columbia are working with the National Governor’s Association and Council of Chief State School Officers to design common math and reading standards between states for every student between kindergarten and twelfth grade. Currently state curriculum and state exams that measure reading and math performance vary pretty significantly between each state, and agreed upon standards would be a "huge step" according to Education Sec. Arne Duncan.

It’s not clear exactly what common standards means, though, since neither a uniform, nationwide curricula nor a uniform state exam will come out of this agreement. Still, the common standards idea is in line with Duncan’s policy vision, which I just wrote about: instead of just trying to improve student performance, Duncan is first interested in how to better measure accountability for said performance among teachers and states. As Bush Education Sec. Margaret Spellings says in the Post article, common standards is a nice way to gauge state-by-state student performance but it shouldn’t be confused with a plan to improve state-by-state student performance.-MB

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