Slipping Standards?

Maryland's English standards, for instance, are well-organized and provide rich detail on how to ensure children have the phonemic awareness and grasp of phonics to enable them to begin reading, the skill critical to all other learning. They also provide much direction about reading comprehension, both literary and informational, and offer useful ideas for adding complex words to student vocabularies grade by grade.

By contrast, the National Standards for English in their current form seem more nebulous and group-oriented than what Maryland and most other states have. They glaringly lack grade-by-grade specifics for such basic tools as phonics and the multiplication tables. Consider this mouthful:

"When communicating in a group and building on the ideas of others with group goals in mind, a student will have to respond constructively by taking turns, using non-verbal cues such as raising a hand. When communicating one-to-one, a student will be able to respond constructively in a more immediate manner such as by asking a question directly of the speaker."

Granted, state standards do vary widely, and some states (including the president's home state of Illinois) have kept the bar low. Standards-raters such as the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation have rated Maryland's standards near the middle of the pack nationally, largely because of a degree of vagueness in later grades.

But the reasons behind different state standards have as much to do with the value of differing academic models as they do with gaming state results on No Child Left Behind testing.

Giving Washington control over national education standards would deny states one of their most effective tools for improving student learning. Even with state budgets stretched tighter than ever, is the gleam of Mr. Duncan's billions really worth compromising away something as crucial to school quality as education standards?

Robert Holland and Don Soifer are education analysts with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia. Their e-mail addresses are [e-mail] and soifer@lexing toninstitute.org.