Did your state FAIL???? Probably - it has a 76% probability.
This from the NYTimes:
Many States Adopt National Standards for Their Schools
By TAMAR LEWIN
Less than two months after the nation’s governors and state school chiefs released their final recommendations for national education standards, 27 states have adopted them and about a dozen more are expected to do so in the next two weeks.
Their support has surprised many in education circles, given states’ long tradition of insisting on retaining local control over curriculum.
This all has sprung from the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
More of the same from the Times:
The quick adoption of common standards for what students should learn in English and math each year from kindergarten through high school is attributable in part to the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition. States that adopt the standards by Aug. 2 win points in the competition for a share of the $3.4 billion to be awarded in September.
"I’m ecstatic," said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education. "This has been the third rail of education, and the fact that you’re now seeing half the nation decide that it’s the right thing to do is a game-changer."
What does The Fordham Institute have to say?
Nationally, 39 states have math content inferior to the administration's proposed national standards, while 37 have inferior English standards, according to the analysis by Fordham, which supports standards-based education and charter schools.
Baltimore? FAIL!
Connecticut? FAIL!
("among the worst in the country,")
California? FAIL! (but yet pass - go figure)
California typically lands at or near the bottom in virtually every measure of public school performance nationally, but the academic content taught to the state's schoolchildren is second to none, according to a study released Tuesday. That status has left the Golden State with a conundrum. To be more competitive for federal Race to the Top funds, the state must adopt common standards in English, math and other subjects to be in sync with most other states.
New York? FAIL!!!
But the Fordham Institute has a history of fudging standards.
Fordham Institute Fudges Standards
The right-wing Fordham Institute's approach to grading state educational standards has so little validity that it would be unwise to base any policy decisions or practice on them, according to an analysis by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice.
Howe, a professor of education at the University of Colorado at Boulder, shows in his analysis how Fordham fudges its assessments so that it can engage in a kind of "grade inflation" for states pursuing policies it favors and grade deflation for states with policies it dislikes. The problem, Howe said, is that Fordham's reviewers provide no evidence for the validity of their judgments and appear to cherry pick data and shift their criteria to suit their preconceived conclusion
Did your state fail, too?
So just who runs Fordham Institute?
Chester Evans Finn, Jr., (b. August 3, 1944) is a former professor of education, an educational policy analyst, and a former United States Assistant Secretary of Education. He is currently the president of the nonprofit Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington, D.C. He is also a Fellow of the International Academy of Education, an Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution where he chairs the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education.
Let's just check Finn's political leanings - oh, say around....
March, 2000
Chester Finn loves charter schools! He even wrote a few books:
Just Released! Charter Schools in Action: Renewing Public Education, by Chester E. Finn, Jr., Bruno V. Manno, and Gregg Vanourek, Princeton University Press, 2000. This important new book provides the most comprehensive examination to date of the charter movement. It answers the vital questions: What exactly are charter schools?
He consults with Lamar Alexander!
Also, he is a Senior Fellow at the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies and serves as a consultant to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander. He has assisted with the planning of the Bush Administration’s America 2000 education strategy.
and The Hoover Institution, an influential in the American conservative and libertarian movements.
And look who gets his money - $1,500 to John McCain in 2008