National standards for high school curriculum

The idea of national standards for high school curriculum seems to be gaining ground. With a country increasingly mobile and information-based this may well be a good idea, but it certainly runs counter to American traditions of "local control" of education.

Local control has already gone out the window in many respects with the adoption of state standards for K-12 curriculum and increasing state control of school funding. (Not to mention federal No Child Left Behind legislation.) Advocates of national standards argue that state standards have created an unwieldy "patchwork" effect, and that states can game the system by writing tests that are too easy and then reporting very high pass rates to receive federal recognition and support.

Today's New York Times has a roundtable-type blog post on the topic, with several expert contributors.

The Washington Post has coverage of recent developments as well.

And of course the Common Core Standards Initiative itself.

Does the diversity of our nation (geographically, economically, culturally) make national standards unrealistic or undesirable? Or should we attempt some form of "one size fits all" curriculum for the twenty-first century?