SPLC Study Pans Lack Of Student Knowledge Regarding Civil Rights Era

MinnPost.com (10/4, Hawkins) reports on a recent Southern Poverty Law Center study which blamed "states' poor academic standards" for a lack of knowledge among students about the civil rights movement. "Based on data drawn from the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the report found that only 2 percent of the 12,000 high-school seniors who took the test could correctly identify the condition that prompted the US Supreme Court's opinion that 'separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.'" The piece describes the political controversy surrounding national curricular standards, noting that Education Secretary Arne Duncan "and most other education-arena folks would like states to adopt a widely applauded, state-developed set of benchmarks known as the Common Core Standards," though conservatives are wary of them leading to a national curriculum.