States are stepping up and embracing federal standards in education as a part of the Race to the Top Program.

I say go for it, and it is good to see some motivation from the states to cede some control in educational matters.  Especially when it comes to adopting standards of what everyone should know at certain grade levels and certain subjects.

I can remember getting in to college, after taking all of these AP classes in High School, making all of these grades, applying myself – and then encountering some of the students that had come all across the nation to college with me, I felt like they had been building a house made of bricks and mortar while I had been trying build a house out of Lincoln Logs.

College for me was initially a game of catch up – because while I had done all I could to take advantage of the best programs that were offered in my school district, it was vastly different even across other districts in my state, and then those opportunities varied even more when comparing what I knew to what other students had experienced.

I truly saw that as we get older, the knowledge hap can become more and more apparent.  For me in high school – Honors Chemistry was often filling in worksheets with names of periodic elements and possibly some time in a lab if we had the resources.  For others not in my school district, Honors Chemistry was lab work and access to equipment, tools, and gadgets.

For that reason, these standards are a good beginning – but they will just be the starting point.

Even with the money the state may receive from the program, that does not ensure that the money awarded due to adopting federal standards will actually go to the school districts within the states that need it most.

For instance, maybe the school district with 7 consistently under-performing schools in their district should get some attention, but maybe it is cheaper to apply these allocated federal dollars to a school district with only 1 poorly performing school.  Then you can find many school districts with average ratings and make them good improving ratings overall.  This does nothing for those areas and districts that can be potentially marginalized because they may pose too much of a challenge or too much of an investment.

However, with all that has been going on with the economy, environment, judicial nominations, race, etc in these 18 or so months since Obama has been in office, I am just glad that time can be taken to focus on ensuring decent educational access exists across state lines with standards and measures for performance.

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