Education in the United States has reached yet another critical milestone on the way toward standardization. On June 1, 2009, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) announced that 46 states, the District of Columbia, and two U.S. territories agreed to join an initiative, called the Common Core Standards Initiative, to develop common standards for math and language arts (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) & Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), 2009b). Since then the movement has gained more momentum. The Obama administration announced that in order to successfully compete for the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" funds, states must develop and adopt common standards that are internationally benchmarked. According to this author, this effort will cause irreversible damage to American education, which has already suffered from No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Zhao contends that this is precisely what is needed to ruin America's capacity for global competitiveness instead of helping American children "to be prepared to compete globally," as the initiative promises. The initiative undertaken by the states to develop a national set of academic standards is based on false assumptions about education and what it takes to succeed in the global economy. Adopting common standards and holding teachers and schools accountable for improving their students' test scores on common assessments may have great political appeal, but it will unlikely make them globally competitive. In fact, says Zhao, such a move causes more damage because it: (1) ruins the traditional strengths of American education to produce creative and diverse talents; (2) distracts attention from addressing the causes of inequality; (3) wastes tremendous amount of money and political assets on doing something that may not matter at all; and (4) sends a strong message that educational professionals are not to be trusted because they are lazy and complacent.