MASSACHUSETTS AND Rhode Island were two of the 16 finalists named this week in the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top’’ competition for a share of $4.3 billion in education “stimulus’’ funds. Those that made the cut have agreed to embrace policies favored by the administration, such as higher caps on charter schools and tying teachers’ raises to performance.
Central to the administration’s approach to education is its drive for uniform national standards in reading and mathematics. The White House announced that it intends to “require all states to adopt and certify that they have college- and career-ready standards . . . as a condition of qualifying for Title I funding.’’ Education Secretary Arne Duncan has reserved $350 million to assist states that consent to common curriculum standards; those that don’t will be barred from seeking Race to the Top grants.
The argument for national standards seems straightforward. The No Child Left Behind law enacted in 2002 required states to establish their own academic standards, but most of them - under pressure from teachers’ unions and school administrators’ associations - set the bar quite low. In a 2006 report, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation concluded that most states’ standards were “mediocre-to-bad . . . They are generally vague, politicized, and awash in wrongheaded fads and nostrums. With a few exceptions, states have been incapable (or unwilling) to set clear, coherent standards.’’ The only way around the states’ aversion to high standards, the Obama administration and others have concluded, is to impose uniform national standards, using the federal purse as leverage.
But if the goal is to have more American students get a successful education, it is far from clear that imposing a single set of benchmarks from above is the best strategy for getting there.
For one thing, the political resistance to rigorous academic standards that has been so effective at the state level is likely to be effective at the national level. The teachers’ unions and administrators’ organizations that oppose higher performance mandates are at least as influential on Capitol Hill as they are in the statehouses. Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute points out that the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, and the Council of Chief State School Officers all make their national headquarters in Washington, DC. Whether in the states or in Washington, McCluskey writes, “the political system is stacked against high