Lightning Round: When, Precisely, Does "Government" Become "Big Government?"

Providing a Benchmark.

States may soon adopt national core standards for education that were designed by state governors and state school leaders, the Washington Post reports. It's part of President Obama's efforts to improve academics across the country.

When the No Child Left Behind Act tried to make schools accountable for educating their students, perhaps the biggest misstep was penalizing schools that failed and relying on school choice and competition as the mechanisms for school improvement. That led to some states lowering their standards, since easier tests would be easier for students to pass, thus preventing a school from being labeled as failing.

Part of the backlash against No Child Left Behind has been criticism that teachers can best determine what and how their students can learn, and some are now trumpeting the idea that a sense of community might matter more than providing school choice. But those can still be valued while recognizing there are national standards toward which every school should strive.

Denying that there should be any standards on a national level at all ignores the fact that some students are at a great disadvantage simply because of geography. Wealthy suburban schools simply have access as a whole to better teachers and better school administrators than those in extremely poor rural or urban areas. It just might be that some teachers need guidance on what the next generation needs to know to compete with their peers. The difference will be in how schools are required to reach the benchmarks.

-- Monica Potts