This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010. I'm Caleb Brown.

Today we have new so-called voluntary common standards for math and English for public schools.

Will they become de facto national standards for federal

education regulators? And if so, so what? The Cato Institutes Neil McCluskey believes no matter

how starry-eyed supporters might be, there is very little evidence

that a national standard will be a high standard.

The main reason that proponents of national standards are saying that the Common Core State Standards Initiative

standards are voluntary is because they are deathly afraid that people say, A, that these are

national standards, not common common standards and much more importantly

that they are de facto federal standards because it is federal money that is

pushing states to adopt them nobody wants or at least no one's willing to admit

that they want the federal government to control the schools.

So they are 100% dedicated to portraying this as a totally state-led voluntary effort to create common standards

and that the federal government has no part, at least no meaningful part, at at all in the shaping of those standards

or enforcing of the standards. The reality is that these standards are not

voluntary any more than it has been voluntary for a state to participate in no child left behind.

No state has to follow federal rules and regulations and education because among many things,

the federal government has no constitutional authority

to be involved in education.

They certainly can't dictate what your curriculum is or anything like that.

So what the federal government has done for about 40 years now is said, you don't have to do anything

we say. You only have to do it if you want to take federal money.

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