As the Washington Post is reporting, the draft K-11 "common core" standards are due to be published any moment. Our own Checker Finn has studied the reading standards and is impressed.
Chester E. Finn Jr. of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute praised the examples of suggested texts from ancient Greece (Homer) to modern times (Amy Tan, Toni Morrison, Jhumpa Lahiri). "It's full of terrific stuff, high quality, content-rich, the kind of thing you want your kids or grandkids to read in school," he said.