Standards deviation

Beware of politicians bearing standards, writes Hillsdale history professor Terrence Moore. He says the proposed Common Core State Standards, which could become national standards, "are only the best of the worst of the existing state standards, [and] have absolutely nothing to do with sound education."

As a college professor I teach freshmen every year, not those from the inner cities, where we admit schools are failing, but from the suburbs of our major cities as well as small towns. The students from public schools (unlike most of those who attend classical or Christian schools or are home-schooled; i.e., not bound by state-mandated standards) know virtually nothing. Public-school students know no facts or events from history. They have been impressed by no work of literature. Yet they have all taken standardized state tests. They have all taken SAT’s or ACT’s. Nonetheless, they are embarrassed when they get to college and realize how little they know, just as I was embarrassed on graduating from a public school and learned in college that straight A’s in high school for doing nothing meant nothing.