S hould the United States have national standards for our education system? Americans have been debating this question for the last quarter of a century. If you are trying to make up your own mind and think the decision should be simple, you’re likely to be surprised. In a system in which localities and states pay about 93 percent of the cost of schooling and the federal government has no constitutional role in education, the nation has flirted with the idea of injecting broader national control into educa- tion policy. The United States has seen historic episodes of federal or national initiatives in education. These episodes include efforts to bolster math and science capability in response to Sputnik, the quest for racial and ethnic equity through the courts, efforts to equalize resources in public schools, and an outright seizure of control in crucial areas of policy and practice through No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In parallel efforts since the mid-1980s, policymakers have made sporadic attempts to raise achievement levels by creating both a national definition of what students should be taught and a national test to see whether schools were successfully bolstering achievement. This effort was touched off by the 1983 report of the National Commission on Educa- tional Excellence, which found the nation “at risk,” although its corrective recommendations were directed at local and state governments. 22 E DUCATIONAL L EADERSHIP / A PRIL 2010 National Education Standards: To Be or Not to Be? The United States has long been of two minds about national education standards. Paul E. Barton Barton pp22-29_3-Final:EL Template 3/1/10 2:55 PM Page 22