National Education Standards Spark Debate About Local Control
As in, the loss thereof
In Kentucky this year, the percentage of elementary and middle-school students who rated "proficient" or better on statewide math and reading tests declined by about a third. Kentucky high schoolers also experienced a double-digit percentage point decline in both subjects.
Those results may sound dismal, but they were better than state education officials had expected. Kentucky is the first state to tie its tests to the new national Common Core standards in English and math, and state officials had projected that the new, tougher standards could yield declines of as much as 50 percent.