Checker discusses national standards with John Merrow in this interview on the Taking Note blog. The conversation covers the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), No Child Left Behind and includes Checker's judgment on the direction of U.S. education:
A big modern country like the U.S. on a shrinking planet in the 21st century needs to move in the direction of national standards and tests, yes. Whether the present approach will get us there nobody can yet say. We had a false start or two in the nineties; it's not beyond imagining that we could have another one now.
Read the whole interview here.