The Washington Post’s Nick Anderson reports:

Experts convened by the nation’s governors and state schools chiefs on Monday proposed a set of math and English skills students should master before high school graduation, the first step toward what advocates hope will become common standards driving instruction in classrooms from coast to coast.

The proposal aims to lift expectations for students beyond current standards, which vary widely from state to state, and establish for the first time an effective national consensus on core academic goals to help the United States keep pace with global competitors. Such agreement has proven elusive in the past because of a long tradition of local control over standards, testing and curriculum.

This sounds good. The no. 1 conceptual flaw with No Child Left Behind is that states and schools get judged based on standardized tests but each state is allowed to write it own, unique tests. Therefore, if you dislike judging schools, students and state education departments based on standardized math and reading tests, you like dislike NCLB. But if you see standardized tests as the closest tool we have to objectively measure education performance, then you should really dislike NCLB. In Illinois, 8th grade student test scores shot up in 2006 — almost entirely because an easier standardized test was given to Illinois 8th graders.

The Obama administration realizes the problem — they plan $350 million in grants for states to adopt common standards. Obama and Education Sec. Arne Duncan don’t offer education policies that different from the Bush administration. But they are alive to what’s needed to implement NCLB in good-faith — money for states and struggling schools and truly standard standardized tests.

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