Minn. won't join effort to create national ed standards

Minnesota education officials say they will not join an effort to develop nationwide standards in math and language arts (pdf).

Education Commissioner Alice Seagren says the proposed national math standards don't align well with the rigorous standards Minnesota already has. She says that's what a group of teachers and other education officials found when they reviewed the proposals.

"It was just too hard to get a comfort level from all those folks to say, 'Yeah, I think we're okay with this.'" Seagren said. "We have to depend on the people that are teaching these standards in the field, the people that are going to be educating our kids."

Seagren says it's possible the state could adopt the national standards later. She also says the state will likely develop its language arts standards to meet the national ones because reviewers like those.