New Bills Would Prod States to Take National View on Standards

Washington

As Congress moves to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act as early as this year, at least one topic will be high on the list: increasing the rigor of state standards and tests by linking them to those set at the national level.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., the new chairman of the Senate education committee, introduced a bill late last week that would encourage states to benchmark their own standards and tests to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often known as the "nation's report card," but would stop short of calling for the development of national standards.

And on Monday, Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, the committee's second-ranking Democrat and a potential presidential contender, introduced a bipartisan bill with Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, R-Mich., that would go a step further by providing incentives for states to adopt voluntary "American education content standards" in mathematics and science, to be developed by the...