news-record.com

North Carolina climbed a big step this week in the federal Race to the Top school funding competition. It’s one of 19 states named a finalist for a share of $3.4 billion.

It helped that North Carolina recently adopted national academic standards, one of the keys to winning points from the U.S. Department of Education.

The Obama administration is using its funding power to force states to reform their public school systems. Race to the Top was designed to reward innovation and punish business as usual. Top-down reform is heavy-handed but effective, given that some states have set low expectations for too long.

North Carolina was one that needed prodding. Its own K-12 academic standards in the most basic subjects — English language arts and math — are “among the worst in the country,” according to a new national survey by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

The evaluation was jarring, especially for English language arts, which analysts called “one of the most befuddling sets of standards reviewed for this report. It is difficult to describe its organization and purpose, for neither is obvious to the reader. The standards are jam-packed with jargon and littered with generic skills that appear in multiple strands (often nonacademic skills, such as personal reflection). Glimpses of good content can be found in early reading, vocabulary, analysis of arguments, and even conventions, but in many places the standards are devoid of academic content.”

The math standards were better, but not by much. Overall, both areas were graded as a D.

In contrast, the new national benchmarks, called the Common Core State Standards, scored a B-plus for English language arts and A-minus for math — in both cases far superior to the current North Carolina standards, the report said.

North Carolina’s race to the top for additional federal funding should be encouraged. With state budget stagnation, help from Washington is sorely needed. The ultimate goal, however, is academic success for North Carolina children. Although improvements were noted recently on 2010 state end-of-course and end-of-grade tests, the question lingers: Has the bar been set too low? More modest results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in recent years suggest the bar isn’t far off the ground, and the Fordham survey adds further evidence.

North Carolina students must compete nationally and internationally. That means they have to be tested against rigorous national standards. If it took the Race to the Top process to move the state in that direction, that’s a benefit in addition to any allocation of federal funds.

But the money would be welcome. It may take greater resources to implement much stronger standards and effectively teach students to achieve more than they’ve been asked to reach before. It’s the only way that really leads to the top.