National Academic Standards

Seems the push to develop National Academic Standards has begun and Virginia will participate in developing the standards. The group developing national standards for Math and English has set a goal of developing those standards by the end of this summer for High School and for Elementary and Middle School by the end of the year.

Here are a few links which might help you understand how this effort could affect what your child learns and how he / she learns it.

Achieve Inc.
The group leading the effort to develop standards are working in conjunction with Achieve, Inc , and non-profit organization developed by the National Governor’s Association in 1996. Achieve has a list of benchmarks they recommend for students in each Grade for both Math and English.

US Department of Education
The Secretary of Education has expressed his support behind the need for national standards and has added an extra push to the effort – he’s indicated that, while the adopting standards will be voluntary, federal funding for schools may only be provided to states which adopt the national standards.

House and Senate Education Committees
The House Committee in Education and Labor held hearings on the need for national academic standards on April 29, 2009. A transcript of testimony at that hearing will be posted as soon as it’s available.