The Department of Education is out with a report that says many states are lowering standards rather than attempting to offer better access to educational opportunities. Thirty-one states deem forth-graders to be proficient in math even though they failed a national exam. Seventeen states said eighth-graders were proficient readers when they failed the national exam.
Since the founding of our nation we have viewed the educating of our children as, primarily, a function of state and local governments. As this evidence demonstrates, however, many of the states are failing that responsibility. Readers of this blog will know that I tend to like to government involvement, but in this case I would hope many of you would agree that the federal government must be allowed to do more. The states have had centuries to get tit right, but our children are falling behind when compared to the rest of the world. At a minimum all states should be using the same standards when determining subject proficiency. Simply allowing states to lower standards in order to pretend they are educating our young people while our nation lags is unacceptable.
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