I am hopeful that President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's "race to the top fund" will help public schools. Finally we will be able to get a clear picture of the state of our education system. With 50 different standards for performance the data available about performance is very inaccurate. We are well past the time and need for absolute local control of standards and curriculum. The department is to hand out five billion dollars to states and nearly three quarters of a billion dollars directly to districts. Hopefully this is just to start. But this is a nice carrot to present the states when they can really use the dollars.
Arne Duncan said in February:
Amen. Sphere: Related Content"If we accomplish one thing in the coming years—it should be to eliminate the extreme variation in standards across America.
I know that talking about standards can make people nervous—but the notion that we have 50 different goal posts is absolutely ridiculous.
A high school diploma needs to mean something—no matter where it's from.
We need standards that are college-ready and career-ready, and benchmarked against challenging international standards."
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