State Schools Chiefs Weigh Issue of National Standards

Washington

Any push for common national academic standards should take into account the needs of the workforce, the nation’s top state school officials asserted at their annual legislative meeting here last week.

To assure that U.S. students stay competitive in a global workplace, members of the Council of Chief State School Officers urged that business, nonprofit, and state and local officials be involved early in the process of coming up with any national standards.

But members of the organization also were wary of the prospect of a national exam or other mandates being imposed by the federal government, even as they discussed ways that the No Child Left Behind Act could be shaped...