I'm curious of NSG's opinion on this.
Here's one opinion:
http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/national-curriculum/
The move towards Common Core State Standards and the two consortia developing assessments have led some to advocate for a common core or national curriculum, as called for by the Albert Shanker Institute in A Call for Common Content: Core Curriculum Must Build A Bridge From Standards to Achievement. A national curriculum would further erode local control and raises other serious issues as indicated in Closing the Door on Innovation: Why One National Curriculum is Bad for America. Closing the Door on Innovation is A Critical Response to the Shanker Institute Manifesto and the U.S. Department of Education’s Initiative to Develop a National Curriculum and National Assessments Based on National Standards. This response includes the following concerns:
No constitutional or statutory basis for national standards, national assessments, or national curricula.
No consistent evidence indicates that a national curriculum leads to high academic achievement.
Developed national standards are inadequate for basing a national curriculum as planned by the administration.
No body of evidence recommends a “best” design for curriculum sequences in any subject.
No body of evidence justifies a single high school curriculum for all students.
Here's another:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/why-i-support-the-common-core-reading-standards/275265/
Reading comprehension skills are not unlike physical muscles: Exercise increases strength. Hence the Common Core reading standards also emphasize the quality and complexity of texts that students read. Instead of a steady diet of watery kiddie lit, the Common Core requires students to grapple with a wide variety of content-rich, high quality texts from across a variety of cultures, eras, and genres. Such texts model for students higher, yet reasonably attainable, models of thinking and writing, better preparing them for career and college. A student will develop more reading comprehension skills during one 50-minute period spent examining one paragraph from the Declaration of Independence than a week of classroom time spent discussing rad themes in the latest young-adult novel.
Many teachers themselves have not been taught to teach this way; indeed many of them have not been taught to read this way themselves. (I know this because these teachers have been in my classroom.) But the Common Core Standards for reading include sample questions particularly to address this gap: The questions are designed for the teachers to use to cultivate the students' deep-reading skills.
Personally, I don't have a deeply formed opinion on this issue but I tend toward less curriculum restrictions by the government because I find that it promotes innovative approaches to education. That said, I don't want schools in places like my home state of Texas to turn into Bible schools when restrictions are lifted.
