Hold your breath and hope for the best -- Massachusetts may vote today on whether to adopt the national Common Core Standards for English and math in place of their own state standards.
 
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/07/21/education_board_ur ged_to_delay_vote_on_new_standards/
 
Much attention has been given to Massachusetts's decision on the CCS.  Will they sell out their own standards, widely recognized as the best in the nation, for federal funding?  With all the debate, I was curious what the Massachusetts state standards looked like.  Are they really so exemplary as they are held out to be?
 
http://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/current.html
 
Keeping in mind that, as a secondary teacher, my area of subject matter expertise is limited, so I cannot comment with similar authority on the appropriateness or rigor of all levels of standards in both English and math ...  these standards impressed me greatly.  Not only are they sophisticated, detailed and comprehensive, but they are also incredibly useful.  The standards are accompanied by eloquent rationales (even relevant quotations from historical and literary figures incorporated into the math standards), informative appendices, and specific, detailed examples of activities illustrating the teaching of many of the individual standards.  An interactive version is included for the math standards that provides sample problems.  Standards are presented in an articulated continuum from pre-K through 12.  There are descriptions of teaching a concept at different grade levels with an appropriate level of sophistication, and sample "Integrated Learning Scenarios" that give concrete direction to the incorporation of the standards in real learning environments within classrooms. (I have already adopted some ideas from them for my own classes this coming school year.)  All of the reading, writing, and math standards are directly and explicitly linked to the MCAS testing (Massachusetts's version of NCLB/graduation testing), which requires open-ended responses as well as multiple-choice bubbles, and an actual literary analysis essay to assess writing at the high school level.  It is obvious that much time and thought went into not only writing the standards, but envisioning what teaching these standards would actually look like in the classroom.  It is equally obvious that experienced, accomplished classroom teachers had an authentic role in writing these standards documents.  This is not the work of Educrats, politicians, and corporate interests.
 
 

Well, then, how do Alabama's standards compare?  Would the CCS be a step up for us?  
First, Alabama doesn't actually have a "standards" document. The state school board adopts state courses of study for each subject, which include rather broad, general objectives for the curriculum to be taught at each level.
 
http://www.alsde.edu/html/sections/documents.asp?section=54&sort=2&foote r=sections
 
http://www.alsde.edu/html/sections/documents.asp?section=54&sort=3&foote r=sections
 
 
While we don't call these "standards", they essentially serve the same purpose the Massachusetts' "Curriculum Framework" and the national "Common Core Standards" do -- they attempt to delineate what is required to be taught at each grade level of a particular subject for all children.  A quick glance will reveal the wide disparity in the detail, sophistication, and scope of the written Alabama courses of study and the CCS (much less the Massachusetts document).  
 
Here is the analogous example to the other two:
 
Alabama State Course of Study
English Language Arts  
 
Grade 10 [only standards for this one grade given for all areas in this section, other grades' standards in separate individual sections]
 
Literature
Compare literary components of various pre-twentieth century American authors’ styles.
     Identifying examples of differences in language usage among several authors
     Examples:  Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards, Phillis Wheatley,
     Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau
 
As with the overall differences between the Massachusetts and CCS documents, the CCS document addresses standards that the Alabama COS does not mention or barely touches, introduces some standards at earlier grades, is more specific and detailed, and does a better job of reflecting the progression and connection of skills and knowledge throughout the grades.  In the area of reading that I am using as an example, the Massachusetts and CCS standards taken as a whole focus more on analysis, evaluation and synthesis throughout the grades, whereas the Alabama standards focus on the more basic identification, explanation, and interpretation skills throughout.  
 
This might be a temptation to go off on an orgy of Alabama-bashing, but before anyone does ...  Traditionally, our state curriculum has deliberately been written to be very broad and general to allow greater flexibility of interpretation at the local and individual level.  Adopting the CCS would definitely result in more standardization of the details of the curriculum -- at least, on paper.  Also traditionally, the state course of study has largely been taken for what it is -- the product of Educrats -- and acknowledged in actual practice in only the most cursory and general of ways, as a very basic guideline and little more.  Because the course of study objectives and the objectives tested on the AHSGE are, at best, only partially and loosely linked, there is little incentive to adhere to the COS strictly, and the document itself gives little comprehensible guidance for what that strict adherence would look like, even if you desired to. The Alabama COS is written to provide, as it directly states, "minimum required content", not to provide a comprehensive continuum of expectations for content.  What actually happens in many real classrooms around the state for many children goes far, far beyond what appears on paper in the COS.  Sadly, what happens in other classrooms in some places and for some children in the state barely approximates even the minimum.
 
To adopt the CCS, then, particularly if the standards are then directly linked to NCLB/graduation testing and teacher performance evaluation, would be to adopt a different kind of document from Alabama's courses of study.  It would be not so much a step up as a change in direction, from individual and local control over the specifics of curriculum decisions based on a general outline adapted to meet local and individual needs to centralized state and federal control over the specifics of curriculum decisions based on a detailed prescriptive document adapted to meet political and corporate needs.  Are those means a worthy trade-off toward the result of greater educational equity for all students in the state?  Would officially adopting the CCS, whatever limitations and constraints it entails politically and fiscally, actually be a positive step toward accomplishing greater consistency in the quality of education for all students, which is surely a desirable goal?  Or would it, in practice, be only another meaningless ream of paper wrapped in red tape and strings, gathering dust on a shelf while sucking our limited educational coffers dry with the procedural bureaucracy it creates?
 
I would argue that whether one set of written standards is higher or better than another on paper is really not the most important issue.  What matters is the consistency of the level of standards that get translated to actual practice in classrooms for all students.
  
And therein lies the crucial difference between the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework and the CCS.  The most important difference (aside from the issue of federal vs. local control of education) is not in the relative level of rigor of the two documents but in their ability to provide a useful set of standards for consistent instructional content not only on paper but in practice.  (And the proof, as they say, is in the pudding -- Massachusetts students lead the nation on measures of academic achievement.)  
 
The CCS aren't inherently bad standards, and one could certainly argue that they are higher than what Alabama currently has on paper, but they aren't very practical for deciding what I am going to teach in my classroom on any given day.  They are skills-based and content-neutral, providing only a description of what students will do (analyze "grade level" literary works) without any indication of how, or what, or why.  The Massachusetts Curriculum Framework provides a vivid picture of what the standards look like in action in a real classroom.  It is inspiring and empowering, but not overly prescriptive or controlling.  I read the CCS and see only words mandating that I jump through yet another ill-defined set of hoops or face punishment.  I read the Massachusetts framework and see possibilities for my classroom that will improve my practice and enhance my students' learning and achievement.  
 
The answer to consistency in curricular expectations, as a step toward educational equity, is not to dictate standards and punish any who fail to rise to them, but to inspire standards and empower all with the ability to reach for them.  

More on the vote:
 
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/mcas/articles/2010/07/22/state_panel_a dopts_us_academic_standards/?page=1
 
Glad to know I'm "ill-informed", Senator O'Leary.