by Quin Hillyer
To understand why even a “voluntary” national curriculum is problematic, consider the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
The NAEP is a widely respected, ideologically rather-unbiased measurement of the academic attainment of America’s schools. Its board is bipartisan; its protocols have been carefully developed for reasonableness. Established in the 1960s, the NAEP was adopted as a measuring standard by the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 – so, although it is technically an independent outfit, it carries an imprimatur from the federal government. One would hope, therefore, that the NAEP would avoid the “political correctness” that pollutes much of the modern culture.