Mitt Romney told NBC’s Brian Williams today that he doesn’t think the federal government should provide support—financial or otherwise—for common standards, which have been adopted by forty-six states and the District of Columbia.
Instead, the Republican presidential nominee thinks states alone should pony up the money for their implementation. The Obama administration has allocated $360 million to two consortia of states to help develop tests that align with the standards, which were created through a partnership of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association. And the administration gave states that adopted the standards an edge in the Race to the Top competition.
“I don’t happen to believe that every time there’s an initiative that comes along, the federal government should finance it,” Romney said during NBC’s Education Nation, noting that the state he governed, Massachusetts, was able to boost its standards without having any extra federal funding.