In one of the most interesting challenges to the validity of Common Core State Standards so far, education historian Diane Ravitch took a big shot three days ago in this Huffington Post Blogs article.

Ravitch charges the Common Core State Standards “were written in a manner that violates the nationally and international recognized process for writing standards.” Specifically, Ravitch points to criteria for developing standards from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which has been involved with standards creation in this country for nearly a century.

Ravitch’s argument is thought-provoking.

I wonder – do many businessmen and organizations that support the Common Core understand that the process used to develop Core violated almost every guideline for ANSI standards creation?

I wonder – how many pro-Core businessmen know that the very same, open and highly effective policies they rely on to create good standards for their industrial operations were violated by the “confidential” process that produced Common Core?

I wonder – how would those businessmen feel if someone pointed out that they demand much more openness and care in the creation of the standards for a light switch than they do for the creation of standards that will impact virtually every child in the country?

ANSI certainly does know something about creating standards. Its Web site points out:

“The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has served in its capacity as administrator and coordinator of the United States private sector voluntary standardization system for more than 90 years.”

While most think of ANSI in terms of technical specifications for industrial products, the general standards creation process ANSI supports has wide-ranging applicability to other fields, including education. In fact, ANSI has standards in the education area such as its “The Student Evaluation Standards: How to Improve Evaluations of Students.”

Consider these general ANSI goals for creating standards from their Frequently Asked Questions list:

• Openness – The ANSI process is fair and open. Any materially affected and interested party shall have the ability to participate.

• Balance – Participants should represent diverse interests and categories, and no single group should have dominance in standards development.

• Due Process – All objections shall have an attempt made towards their resolution. Interests who believe they have been treated unfairly have a right to appeal.

• Consensus – Agreements are reached when more than a majority, but not necessarily all, of the participants concur on a proposed solution.

• Often the consumer is on the receiving end of this and therefore plays a large role in ANSI’s process.

• ANSI’s Consumer Interest Forum (CIF) reviews consumer needs and plans and carries out programs to satisfy them.

While these guiding principles were largely aimed at insuring industrial products would work well and interchangeably, there is clear value here for developing quality education standards, as well.

Except, Common Core violated most of these ANSI guidelines.

• The Core process wasn’t open. From the start it was made clear that Common Core would be created by Work Groups working under “confidential” conditions.

• Common Core’s Work Groups have been criticized for a lack of balance, especially for the paucity of teachers and non-education professional parents. The Common Core Work Groups were largely populated by “academics and assessment experts—many with ties to testing companies.”

• There was no due process. Concerns raised by Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Prof. James Milgram, for example, were not only ignored, but they were totally omitted from the final report of the Common Core State Standards Validation Committee.

• There clearly is no right to appeal with Common Core. There is no on-going service organization for Common Core (another ANSI requirement) that would even act on such an appeal. The Common Core Work Groups are disbanded. Furthermore, there is no servicing organization for Common Core to collect user input for future improvement. That would not fly in an ANSI program, either.

I think Prof. Ravitch sums up the problem nicely with her last comments, so I’ll close with this quote from her:

“Lacking most of these qualities, especially due process, consensus among interested groups, and the right of appeal, the Common Core cannot be considered authoritative, nor should they be considered standards. The process of creating national academic standards should be revised to accord with the essential and necessary procedural requirements of standard-setting as described by the American National Standards Institute. National standards cannot be created ex nihilo without a transparent, open, participatory consensus process that allows for appeal and revision.”