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WebMemo22Published by The Heritage Foundation

No. 3437December 21, 2011

A National Education StandardsExit Strategy or States

Lindsey M. Burke

This paper, in its entirety, can be ound at:http://report.heritage.org/wm3437

Produced by the Domestic Policy Studies Department

Published by The Heritage Foundation214 Massachusetts Avenue, NEWashington, DC 200024999(202) 546-4400 heritage.org

Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily refectingthe views o The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to

aid or hinder the passage o any bill beore Congress.

The push or centralized control over what every

child should learn has never had more momentum.The Obama Administration has pressured states toadopt the Common Core State Standards Initiative,conditioning more than $4 billion in Race to theTop grants on its adoption. The Administrationsblueprint or the rewrite o No Child Let Behindalso called or Title I dollars to be contingent onstates adoption o the nationalized standards.

Some state leaders have jumped on the band-wagon to nationalize the standards and contenttaught in local schools. With little public notice,

many states have agreed to adopt the CommonCore national standards.

This movement is a challenge to educationalreedom in America and is costly in terms o liberty,not to mention dollars. State leaders who believein limited government and liberty should resistthis imposition o centralized standards. Adoptingnational standards and tests through the CommonCore State Standards Initiative surrenders control ostandard-setting to distant national organizationsand Washington bureaucrats.

Education reorm should give control over edu-cation to those closest to students. Conservativeshave the opportunity to reverse course and rejectthis latest centralizing overreach. It is time or statesto reject the nationalization o standards, tests, andultimately, curricula, and instead work to strength-en and improve excellence in their local schoolsthrough state and local policy.

Exiting the Common Core National Stan-

dards. State policymakers should reclaim controlover the content taught in their local schools byresisting the imposition o national standards andtests and preventing their implementation. Statesshould consider the ollowing three strategies:

1. Determine how the decision was made tocede the states standard-setting authority.

States can exit rom the national standards over-reach by frst determining which state entityagreed to adopt the Common Core State Stan-dards. For most states, the state board o educa-

tion is the body that made the decision.State boards o education have wide-rangingauthority over education policy in most states.

While authority varies rom state to state, stateconstitutions and statutes generally give broadauthority to state boards to implement policiesgoverning standards, assessments, and curricula.

The adoption o Common Core national stan-dards represents an abdication o this authority.Putting national organizations and Washing-ton bureaucrats in charge o standards urther

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No. 3437 December 21, 2011WebMemo

removes parents and taxpayers rom the educa-tional decision-making process.

State boards o education were elected orappointed to govern state education policy, notto surrender educational authority to a cen-

tralization movement. Advocates o ederalismshould be concerned that their state ofcialshave ceded authority o the standards andassessments that drive what is taught in localschools. They should also be concerned that, inaddition to the heavy cost to liberty, states standto incur signifcant new expenses as a result oCommon Core adoption.

2. Prohibit new spending for standardsimplementation.

Adoption o nationalized standards means over-

hauling existing state standards and assess-ments, which will be a costly endeavor or states.State and local taxpayers expended signifcantamounts o money in most states to implementand maintain existing state standards and tests.Making pedagogical and curricular changes,revamping proessional development, and align-ing textbooks and assessments to adhere to theCommon Core will burden already-strainedstate budgets. Texas Education CommissionerRobert Scott estimates national standards adop-tion would cost taxpayers in his state more than

$3 billion.1

To assess the ull fscal impact, state leadersshould request an independent cost analysis onational standards adoption to inorm taxpayersabout the short-term and long-term costs o theoverhaul.

At the same time, governors and state policy-makers concerned with the national standardspush should reuse to expend any state or localresources to align state standards, tests, and cur-ricula with the Common Core national stan-

dards and tests.

3. Determine how to reverse course.The rushed adoption o the Common Corein many cases preceded the election o 2010,which brought in new governors, legislators,and board members. Newly elected conservative

leaders should be concerned about the authorityhanded to centralizers by their predecessors andinvestigate how to bring standards and curricu-lum control back into the hands o state leaders.

A Better Path Forward. It is, as state constitu-tions and statutes demonstrate, the responsibilityo states and local school districts to defne andimplement standards, assessments, and curricula.

Although many states moved to adopt the CommonCore national standards and tests prior to the 2010electionan unprecedented surrender o state edu-cational control to Washingtonconservative lead-ers can reclaim control over the content taught intheir local schools by resisting the imposition onational standards and tests and preventing theirimplementation.

A hal-century o ever-increasing ederal involve-ment in education has ailed to increase academicachievement. Relinquishing control o state edu-cational autonomy to distant bureaucrats in Wash-ington will ail to improve outcomes or childrenand will urther remove parents rom the deci-sion-making process. National standards would

strengthen ederal control over education whileweakening schools direct accountability to parentsand taxpayers.

Instead, state leaders should work to strengthenstate standards and tests, provide school peror-mance inormation to parents and taxpayers, andempower parents to act on school perormance databy oering more school-choice options.

Lindsey M. Burke is Senior Education PolicyAnalyst in Domestic Policy Studies at The HeritageFoundation.

1. Lindsey Burke, National Standards and Tests: Big Expense, Little Value, Heritage Foundation Webmemo No. 3157,February 18, 2011, at http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/02/national-education-standards-and-tests-big-expense-little-value.