Thank you, Lynne Cheney for speaking up against national academic standards. The Los Angeles Times
reported last week:
The Education Department this summer destroyed more than 300,000 copies of a booklet designed for parents to help their children learn history after the office of Vice President Dick Cheney's wife complained that it mentioned the National Standards for History, which she has long opposed...Cheney's office reviewed drafts and provided materials but the second lady was not personally involved, an aide said.
The references to the National History Standards were added at the Education Department after Cheney's office signed off on an initial draft that did not mention them.
We wonder whether Mrs. Cheney, long an advocate of knowledge-based education (especially in the study of history) raised similar concerns before the Clinton-Ted Kennedy education act became such a keystone of President G.W. Bush's domestic agenda. Although national standards are often touted as "voluntary," standardized national tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are often heavily based upon them; and at the end of the day, what gets tested gets taught.
