Some education policymakers in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere are arguing that private schools that accept voucher or tuition tax credit scholarship students should have to implement state mandated curriculum standards. Since many states have adopted the national Common Core Standards, including Georgia, this would mean that private schools would have to 1) implement a national standardized curriculum, 2) train their teachers to teach the national standards, 3) teach the national curriculum to students, and 4) assess the students based on how well they are learning the national standards.
Last fall, Educational Liberty Watch analyzed and ranked each state based on the degree to which their voucher or tuition tax credit scholarship promoted educational freedom. Because Georgia's tuition tax credit law does not require private schools to test their students on specific standardized tests, Georgia received an "A" grade. Indiana, which requires state tests (i.e., Common Core) to be administered to all the students in a private school that have any students that receive a voucher, received an "F" grade.
Here is a link to the Education Liberty Watch analysis:
It appears as though the next stage of the school choice movement will include a debate over whether private schools that accept voucher or tax credit scholarship students will have to administer state standardized tests to all of their students. It is unlikely that many parents choose private schools for their children with the expectation that the private schools teach a state mandated curriculum. However, through survey results or otherwise, advocates for educational freedom need to be able to provide evidence of the other criteria upon which parents rely in making educational choices on behalf of their children.