Michigan goes for education standards Kentucky should consider, too

It’s no secret that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are becoming more and more controversial.

So, why not adopt an already developed and proven set of state standards that produced the best education performance in the country before CCSS came along?

According to the Washington Post’s education reporter, Michigan’s legislators just did that. They dumped Common Core and said their state will now use the very excellent standards that Massachusetts had before CCSS came along.

By the way, dumping their former, very excellent standards made a lot of folks in Massachusetts really unhappy. Right now, people there are working to get a ballot initiative for the November election that will give Massachusetts back to its own, nation-leading former standards, too.

Here at home, Kentucky is at a standards crossroad right now. The Bluegrass State can continue with standards that saw a decline in recent eighth-grade math test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) along with flat performance for other fourth and eighth-grade reading and math areas.

We can continue with standards that are related to declines in multiple subjects in real college entrance tests such as EXPLORE and PLAN along with rising white minus black achievement gaps.

We can struggle on with standards that inexplicably ignore content needed by many students during the last two years of high school.

Or, we can go with proved standards that consistently gave Massachusetts just about the best performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress back before CCSS muddied up the waters.

Thanks to new federal laws, it looks like this is now Kentucky’s choice. We’d be pretty unwise not to take it.