One of the guys leading the common-standards initiative sat down in front of a roomful of state board of education members in Philadelphia yesterday and said, "I'm not from the federal government." A wave of chuckles rippled through the room. But he was getting at something serious.
The quip by Chris Minnich, who is overseeing the common-standards work for the Council of Chief State School Officers, was intended to ease some of the skepticism about the initiative being led by CCSSO and the National Governors Association. He was appearing with the NGA's David Wakelyn at the third in a series of regional meetings the National Association of State Boards of Education has been hosting to inform its members about the Common Core Standards Initiative.
Minnich was responding to grumbles that emerged at an earlier NASBE meeting that the common-standards initiative is an unwelcome federal intrusion into states' education business. (See here for a story I wrote from that meeting, and two blog items, here and here.)
Minnich clarified that the initiative originated with states, not the federal government. And while the feds are certainly ardent supporters of the common-standards work—even offering Race to the Top incentives to states that support it—the initiative is not, not, not a federal initiative, he said.
