National standards?

You may well have seen some of the news earlier this week on the latest drive for national education standards. I know this is an idea that is renewed every so often in education, and I hadn't weighed in because I hadn't read enough yet to know what this version entailed.

A few points:

• the standards are "voluntary" but the quotes are intentional. There is every indication that the Obama administration intends to tie federal education funding to these particular standards (like them or not, Article X or not). Yes, like STG and RTTT
• the standards include only English and math. This avoids the sticky issues of history and science (on which getting states to agree might well be politically impossible), but it ups the ante on states to focus only on those two things to the detriment of, well, science, history, art, music, or anything else.
• there have been some pretty radical about-faces on this issue over the last few months, about the same time that the Gates Foundation started giving grants on this.
• they don't appear to be very good standards. There are parts that are fine, but this seems to head us right back down a road that includes little understanding of how children actually learn
• it's not often I find anything to agree with the Pioneer Institute about, but you could read their take, as well

Take a look, weigh in, and let me know what you think. Comments close the first week of April.