Can money buy national standards?

The national standards movement just received a $350 million infusion from Duncan and the education department. The interesting part is that the money is not to develop the standards, but to develop the tests used to measure student achievement against the standards. He believes that developing the standards will be a relatively minor expense compared to creating the assessments. In his words:

"Having real high standards is important, but behind that, I think in this country we have too many bad tests," Duncan said. "If we're going to have world-class international standards, we need to have world-class evaluations behind them."

I can't argue with this as he is looking at assessments that measure whether students are mastering complex materials and can apply them in ways that show they are ready for post high school learning and work. I don't know if these assessments are what we are looking at in OSPI's new system, but they sound different. Could be interesting as there are only four states that have not signed on to this national standards movement. There is much yet to do, but with each new support they inch closer to reality.