South Korea's suggestion that officials meet in a truce village straddling the heavily armed border between the countries came hours after Pyongyang said it favors holding talks in its border city of Kaesong.

South Korea on Thursday had suggested high-level talks Wednesday in Seoul, but North Korea said Friday it wanted lower-level talks first because the countries' "relations have been stalemated for years and mistrust has reached the extremity."

Two officials with Seoul's Unification Ministry, which deals with North Korea matters, said South Korea made the latest proposal through a cross-border Red Cross communications line newly reopened by the North. The South Korean officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office policy.

Pyongyang didn't immediately respond to Seoul's most recent offer, but even the restoration the Red Cross line in the truce village of Panmunjom signals an easing of tensions. The line, used for exchanging messages on humanitarian and other issues, was shut down by the North in March during a weekslong period of animosity marked by North Korean threats of war and South Korean vows of counterstrikes.

Friday's developments followed the countries' agreement a day earlier to hold talks on issues including reopening a jointly run industrial complex in Kaesong that had been the last symbol of inter-Korean cooperation before it closed this spring.

The news was welcomed on both sides of the world's most heavily fortified border.

Kwak Sok Gyong, a Pyongyang resident, told The Associated Press that the North's announcement "reflects what people want in both north and south. I think the relations between north and south should be improved as soon as possible." North Koreans interviewed by foreign media in Pyongyang often echo statements carried by the country's official state media.

In Seoul, Park Gyeong-hyun, a 17-year-old student, said the Koreas have many unresolved problems, such as families separated by the Korean War six decades ago. "So I view the talks as a positive thing because the relationship between the two Koreas will get better if the talks go well."

Officials in Seoul said it wasn't yet clear what Sunday's proposed talks will focus on, if they happen. Such meetings in the past have involved lower-level officials charged with ironing out administrative details and reporting back to their bosses. The next step would be higher-level talks.

The last government-level contact between the Koreas on their peninsula took place in February 2011 at Panmunjom, according to the South's Unification Ministry, which deals with North Korea issues.

The mood on the Korean Peninsula has been tense since North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died in December 2011 and his son, Kim Jong Un, took over. Pyongyang, which is estimated to have a handful of crude nuclear devices, has committed a drumbeat of acts over the last year that Washington, Seoul and others deem provocative.

The proposed talks could represent a change in North Korea's approach, analysts said, or could simply be an effort to ease international demands that it end its development of nuclear weapons, a topic crucial to Washington but not a part of envisioned inter-Korean meetings.

Pyongyang understands that dialogue with Seoul is a precondition for any meaningful talks with the United States, and the North's latest overtures are aimed at creating a mood that could lead to U.S.-North Korea negotiations, said Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korea expert at Korea University in South Korea.

Because Pyongyang needs talks with Washington to win aid and security guarantees, "realistically, the North doesn't have a choice" in pursuing talks with Seoul. "Its relations with the United States can't improve while its relations with South Korea remain tense," Yoo said.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday that Washington supports improved inter-Korean relations but cautioned that it doesn't signal progress on restarting talks on North Korea's nuclear program. For that to happen, North Korea has to abide by its previous commitments to abandon its nuclear weapons, she said.

If the Koreas meet Sunday, the talks will come on the heels of a high-profile summit Friday by Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama in which North Korea is expected to be a key topic. Xi is also scheduled to meet with South Korean President Park Geun-hye later this month.

Beijing, which is Pyongyang's only major economic and political ally, has expressed growing frustration with its neighbor, tightening inspections on cross-border trade and halting business with North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank. But Beijing, worried about its own economy and a possible influx of refugees, also views stability in Pyongyang as crucial.

The proposals for dialogue by the Koreas follow a meeting late last month in Beijing by Xi and the North Korean military's top political officer, who reportedly expressed a willingness to "launch dialogue with all relevant parties."

Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said Friday a directive signed by President Barack Obama last year calls for government cyber tools to be "integrated with the full array of national security tools we have at our disposal."

Hayden was responding a report in the British newspaper The Guardian that says Obama has ordered national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential cyber targets overseas.

The Guardian report comes as Obama was about to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with alleged Chinese hacking against the U.S. to be one of the main topics of discussion.

While the newspaper report offers details about Obama's directive that had not been made public before, the White House released a declassified summary of the directive in January.

Moreover, the Pentagon acknowledged in March that it was setting up a series of cyber teams charged with carrying out offensive operations to combat the threat of an electronic assault on the United States.

Gen. Keith Alexander, the top officer at U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, testified March 12 before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the potential for an attack against the nation's electric grid and other essential systems is real and that the federal government needed to take more aggressive steps.

At the time, Alexander said 13 cyber teams were being formed to guard the nation against destructive attacks in cyberspace, stressing that their role would be offensive. He also said the teams would work outside the United States, but he did not say where.

"This directive will establish principles and processes that can enable more effective planning, development and use of our capabilities," Hayden said in a statement Friday. "It enables us to be flexible, while also exercising restraint in dealing with the threats we face. It continues to be our policy that we shall undertake the least action necessary to mitigate threats and that we will prioritize network defense and law enforcement as the preferred courses of action."

The timing of Friday's report coincides with Obama's two days of meetings with Xi at a California retreat. Top issues are cybersecurity and North Korea's nuclear threats.

The Guardian's report is the third significant leak of classified information this week. Following other revelations, the Obama administration has conceded that it has been secretly seizing phone records from millions of Americans and scouring U.S. Internet data for evidence of potential terrorist plotting.

Obama himself weighed in Friday, defending the counterterrorism measures and noting that they are authorized and reviewed by Congress. He also said the Internet surveillance program does not apply to U.S. citizens or to people living in the United States.

"I don't welcome leaks, because there's a reason why these programs are classified," Obama said, before the latest Guardian report. "In our modern history, there are a whole range of programs that have been classified because, when it comes to, for example, fighting terror, our goal is to stop folks from doing us harm, and if every step that we're taking to try to prevent a terrorist act is on the front page of the newspapers or on television, then presumably the people who are trying to do us harm are going to be able to get around our preventive measures."

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Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this report.

Twenty years ago this week, one of the worst atrocities in Liberia's war a conflict that was marked by its sheer brutality and high civilian casualties occurred in Carter Camp when some 600 people were slaughtered on the night of June 5-6, 1993.

The neglect shown the victims mirrors the lack of action in bringing the perpetrators to justice. A United Nations-commissioned inquiry found the army of the late president Samuel Doe responsible, but other accounts have since challenged the report. No one was ever put on trial even though Liberia's post-conflict truth commission recommended prosecution for perpetrators of crimes in the war generally.

Nyenati Allison, who was then a reporter for The Associated Press, visited the area soon after the carnage and described a horrible scene: "Strewn through the camp were babies with crushed skulls, mothers hacked by machetes, elderly people butchered like livestock."

The victims were hastily buried. A profusion of bushes now renders the mass grave, dug between two aging trees on the outskirts of the old camp, all but inaccessible.

"The government needs to build a memorial here so that at least generations unborn will know what happened here," said Yelesah Mark, a 48-year-old survivor of that hellish night as he struggled to control his emotions.

Carter Camp existed originally as home for low-income rubber tappers of the Firestone tire company, situated 48 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Monrovia near the world's largest rubber plantation which began operations in 1926. When fighting between rival rebel forces and regional peacekeepers displaced locals, they sought refuge in Carter Camp, swelling its population to over 3,000. By the time of the massacre, those in the camp of mud huts were a combination of company employees and people displaced by fighting.

The camp was immediately abandoned after the massacre and visitors have to be told there once was a camp here. Grass has taken over everywhere. Apart from a Nigerian-originated church which operates here, the few visible living things are birds building nests in trees that once provided shades for camp residents.

Mark was among the displaced people who nearly lost their lives in the Carter Camp Massacre, one of the worst atrocities in Liberia's 14-year civil war that ended in 2003. When gunmen dressed in military uniform entered the sprawling camp, said Mark, "we saw two tactical jeeps in which they came taking positions at the two ends of the camp, but we did not know their intent at first."

The slaughter soon began, with the attackers using firearms and machetes. Over 200 of those who were butchered were children.

"My brother-in-law Bainda and my friend Sackie were among the batch of displaced people slaughtered behind a poultry house down there," he said. "The killings were all over the camp; as people cried for help, all you could hear were 'ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba'" Mark said, imitating the sound of automatic weapons fire.

"Whenever I ... tell the story to people, it brings back that sad memory; it looks like we are digging out old wounds," he said. "But again, the story has to be told."

Mark said those who drove into the camp and carried out the massacre were former soldiers belonging to the army loyal to Doe. The then president was killed in 1990, but the army he led continued to remain active, fighting other rival forces.

Flan J. Nowon was a relief worker supervising food distribution in Carter Camp 20 years ago. He and his team worked there hours before the massacre, handing out food to "desperate people." They decided to take a break and return to their homes outside the camp, planning to return and resume the food distribution the next morning.

"It was just about two hours later that we started hearing heavy gunfire in the camp," Nowon said, standing with AP reporters near the overgrown mass grave. "I believed for sure there was something terrible happening in the camp when I saw a woman who had been shot in the buttock coming out of the camp naked, bleeding and crying and carrying a child."

"I ran back inside and told my wife 'Carter Camp is on fire,'" Nowon recalled.

The lack of accountability for massacres such as this one has bred suspicion that persists two decades later that some of those who orchestrated the violence are in positions of power.

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was a leader of a rebel group in 1993 and whose fighters many people like Nowon suspect had a hand in the attack, was found guilty in April 2012 in an international war crimes court in the Netherlands of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity and received a 50-year prison sentence.

But that was for aiding and abetting rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone, not for atrocities in his own country.

"Liberia became a place where killing was a way of life," said Nowon. "And those who killed people deliberately in Liberia have been left to roam the streets."

The 49-year-old Love carded seven birdies in the round with three bogeys to be level with fellow Americans Martin Flores, Glen Day and Harris English, along with Australians Stuart Appleby and Nathan Green at the top of a crowded leaderboard.

Love upstaged his marquee group of defending champion Dustin Johnson (67) and world number six Brandt Snedeker (70).

Johnson was part of a logjam of 10 players just a shot off the lead in a tie for seventh including David Toms, Scott Stallings and Peter Hanson.

The Australian pair of Appleby and Green were surprise leaders given the two former winners have not had any impressive form of late.

In his 200th start on the PGA Tour, Green went bogey-free with four birdies.

The 2009 Canadian Open winner has just two top 10s since his lone win almost four years ago and plays out of the former champion category.

This time he took advantage of one of his rare starts on tour.

"The last few years my game has gone a little bit south," Green said.

"The game is changing a little bit. I was always a really good chipper and putter, and I lost that part of my game almost totally. I am sort of rebuilding that.

"To get around here without any bogeys is pretty good."

Appleby, a nine-time winner on tour, last won in 2010 at the Greenbrier Classic and he has just one top 10 since.

World number 10 Phil Mickelson failed to threaten the leaders with a round of 71 as he looks to get sharp for the U.S. Open next week.

Mickelson started well enough with a birdie on the 10th hole, his first, but found drama on a three-hole stretch soon after.

The four-time major champion bogeyed the 15th before producing a rare debacle at the par five 16th.

After making the greenside bunker in two Mickelson threw his sand shot way over the green after catching it thin and his return flop shot ended up back in the beach where he started.

Unable to get up and in from the trap again, he carded a double bogey seven.

Another bogey on the 17th had the five-time U.S. Open runner up in trouble. But showing plenty of fight he birdied the opening three holes on the front side of the course to get back to level par.

A late bogey on the ninth left him with his 71 and in a tie for 80th.

"My short game wasn't sharp today," Mickelson told reporters. "I made a mistake in some of my shot selections, trying to hit some of these shots off very tight lies. I tried a few shots and I struggled with them.

"I really feel like I'm striking the ball well and the score obviously isn't very good especially the way I feel I'm playing but this is the first competitive round I've had in a little while.

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow's round because I know ball-striking wise it's about as good as I've been striking it and I feel like there is a good round in me."

(Reporting by Ben Everill; Editing by Ian Ransom)

The study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that among the more than 1,300 youths who reported victimization by adult staff, 9 out of 10 were male juvenile detainees reporting sexual activity with female staff members.

According to the bureau, about 2.5 percent of juveniles, or 450, reported a sexual incident involving another youth last year, and 7.7 percent, or 1,390, reported an incident involving facility staff.

The survey mandated by the Prison Rape Elimination Act defines sexual victimization as any unwanted sexual activity between youth and all sexual activity between youth and adult staff.

Young males made up more than 90 percent of the juvenile population at the facilities surveyed, and women accounted for nearly 45 percent of the staff.

The survey was conducted between February and September 2012 in 273 state-owned or operated juvenile facilities and 53 local or privately operated facilities that held youths under state contract. The survey covered incidents in the previous 12 months.

One in five victims of staff sexual misconduct reported experiencing physical force or threats. One in five said they were given drugs or alcohol to engage in sexual contact.

"It's deeply troubling that staff the very people charged with helping these young people turn their lives around are the primary perpetrators of sexual abuse," said Lovisa Stannow, executive director of Just Detention International, an advocacy group. "Today's report illustrates the fundamental failure of many juvenile detention facilities to keep their youth safe, and to demand that staff uphold the most basic standards of professional behavior."

There was marked improvement in the figures between 2008-09 and 2012. The rate of sexual victimization dropped from 12.6 percent to 9.9 percent in that period.

"These numbers are both devastating and hopeful," said Stannow. "They show clearly that it is possible to protect young detainees from the devastation of sexual abuse."

Georgia, Illinois, Ohio and South Carolina each had a sexual victimization rate of more than 15 percent. Delaware, Massachusetts, New York and the District of Columbia had no reported incidents of sexual victimization.

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Online:

Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://bjs.gov

Roy, who won two Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens and two with Colorado before retiring in 2003 after a 19-year career, reached an agreement in principal to become the sixth head coach in Avalanche history.

"This is an unbelievable day for me," Roy, 47, said in a statement released by the Avalanche. "It's a new and exciting challenge that I am really looking forward to.

The Canadian takes over a struggling Colorado team that has not made the playoffs since 2010 and finished the 2012-13 NHL season in last place in the Western Conference with the second-worst record in the league.

Roy will also serve as the club's vice president of hockey operations and will re-unite with former Avalanche teammate Joe Sakic, who is Colorado's executive vice president of hockey operations.

"All along Patrick was our top candidate and we are thrilled that he has decided to accept this offer," said Sakic.

"Patrick has a great hockey mind, is a tremendous coach and there is no one more passionate about this game. He will bring that winning attitude to our dressing room to help this young team grow."

Roy, the only player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy three times as most valuable player in the Stanley Cup playoffs, has spent the last eight seasons as head coach and general manager of the Quebec Remparts in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

He guided the Remparts to a 348-196-0 record and also to the 2006 Memorial Cup title as the Canadian Hockey League champions.

Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2006, Roy retired with the most regular season wins ever in the league (551), a number that now ranks second of all-time. His 151 postseason wins have never been eclipsed by a goaltender.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank Pingue)

DUBAI (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies Co's Middle East revenue rose 18 percent to $2.08 billion in 2012 and the roll-out of 4G mobile networks and IT outsourcing will be among its main regional growth drivers, the firm said.

The world's second-largest telecom equipment maker also expects Middle East telecom operators to prioritize improving network efficiency, Shi Yaohong, president of Huawei Middle East, told Reuters in an email.

"Operators' shift toward software-defined networks, IT outsourcing and adoption of 4G ... are all going to play a key role in Huawei's future business," said Shi.

The disclosure of the Middle East revenue figures - Huawei declined to reveal its net profit or capital expenditure for the region - may be part of a broader effort to be more open, coming after the company's Chief Financial Officer Cathy Meng hosted her first news conference earlier this year to announce the company's 2012 results.

Many Middle East telecom firms, particularly in the wealthy Gulf, have unveiled 4G or long-term evolution (LTE) networks that potentially offer mobile internet speeds more than double that of 3G, but a shortage of devices has caused a slower-than-expected consumer take-up of this technology, said Shi.

Shenzhen-based Huawei is also the world's No.5 smartphone maker, competing with the likes of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

"By expanding our local portfolio to include more smartphones, tablets and wifi routers that are compatible with technologies like 4G LTE, we hope to open up the market significantly over the next 12 months," said Shi.

"In the device realm, we recognize Huawei was hardly known to most local consumers just two years ago. Building our consumer brand will still take time."

The Middle East accounted for 5.9 percent of Huawei's $35.35 billion global revenue last year, up from 5.5 percent in 2011, according to Reuters calculations.

Huawei defines the Middle East as incorporating the six Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates - plus Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

Huawei declined to provide a segmental revenue breakdown for the Middle East, but globally its carrier business accounted for 73 percent of revenue last year, while its enterprise and consumer units contributed 5.2 and 21.8 percent respectively, according to Reuters calculations.

"Our enterprise and consumer offerings are still relatively new in this region," added Shi.

(Editing by David Holmes)

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Groups supporting the right to abortion filed suit on Tuesday challenging an Arkansas law that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks, seeking to block one of the nation's most restrictive abortion measures before it takes effect in July.

The Republican-controlled Arkansas legislature overrode Democratic Governor Mike Beebe's veto of the controversial measure in March. At the time, it was the most restrictive state abortion law in the nation.

Since then North Dakota lawmakers passed a law banning abortion as early as six weeks.

The Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act would ban most abortions at about 12 weeks of pregnancy, once a fetal heartbeat can be detected by a standard ultrasound.

It includes exemptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother and major fetal conditions. Doctors who violate the law risk having their licenses revoked by the state Medical Board.

Eleven states including Arkansas already ban abortions at 20 weeks or later, according to Kate Bernyk, spokesman for The Center for Reproductive Rights.

Eight states enforce the bans: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Indiana, Alabama, Nebraska and North Carolina. Similar measures in Arizona, Georgia and Idaho have been blocked by the courts.

The Arkansas lawsuit, filed in federal court on Tuesday by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the national American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU's Arkansas chapter, asked for a temporary injunction against the law. It was filed on behalf of two Arkansas doctors who perform abortions.

"It's a clear violation of U.S. Court rulings, dating back 40 years," said Rita Sklar, director of the ACLU of Arkansas.

Aaron Sadler, spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, said the state had been expecting the lawsuit.

"It is our responsibility to defend state law, and we will do so in this litigation," Sadler said.

Planned Parenthood, which is the nation's largest abortion provider and operates clinics in Arkansas, fought the measure.

"This restrictive ban on safe and legal abortion puts the health and safety of Arkansas women and their families at risk," said Jill June, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. "A woman may need an abortion for many different reasons, and she should be trusted to make her own personal private medical decisions."

Jerry Cox, president of Family Council of Arkansas, which opposes abortion, said he thinks the courts will allow the Arkansas measure to stand.

"If the state of Arkansas ends up spending public funds to defend a law that protects human life, that's an excellent use of our public dollars."

(Reporting by Suzi Parker; Editing by Greg McCune and Leslie Gevirtz)

The new Common Core standards replace a hodgepodge of educational goals that had varied greatly from state to state. The federal government was not involved in the state-led effort to develop them but has encouraged the project.

While proponents say the new standards will better prepare students, critics worry they'll set a national curriculum for public schools rather than letting states decide what is best for their students.

There was little dissent when the standards were widely adopted in 2010, but that begun changing last year and debate picked up steam this year. The standards have divided Republicans, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush championing them and conservatives such as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, opposing them.

Lawmakers and governors are reviewing the standards in Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Indiana, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah. Grassley, meanwhile, persuaded eight other senators to sign onto a letter in April asking the Senate Appropriations Committee to stop the Education Department from linking adoption of the standards to eligibility for other federal dollars. That same month, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution calling the standards an "inappropriate overreach."

Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Bush-backed Foundation for Excellence in Education, said conservatives historically have supported higher standards and greater accountability.

"The fact that they are opposed to Common Core now is a little surprising and disappointing given the fact that states came together to solve a need," Campbell said, adding that the new standards will allow for state-by-state comparisons that haven't been possible before. "We are going to have more rigorous assessments that are going to test kids against those higher standards and hopefully achieve what we all want, which is a dramatically greater quality of education in America."

The American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, Washington-based think tank that espouses conservative policies in state legislatures, debated in November whether to oppose the Common Core standards. The group ultimately decided to remain neutral, but its discussion, along with concerns raised by conservative groups such as the Goldwater and Pioneer institutes, caught the attention of lawmakers.

States that adopt the standards are supposed to use them as a base on which to build their curricula and testing, but they can make their benchmarks tougher than Common Core. While the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, found the new standards to be more rigorous than those that had been used by three-quarters of all states, critics question what will happen in states whose previous standards were tougher.

"So in that regard we really viewed Common Core as the race to the middle, not to the top," said Jamie Gass, director of the Center for School Reform at the Pioneer Institute.

Questions about testing also have arisen. In New York, among the first states to test students based on the standards, some students complained this spring that the Common Core-aligned English exams were too difficult to complete in the allotted time, and there were reports of students crying from stress.

Jonathan Butcher, education director for the Goldwater Institute, based in Phoenix, said opposition also is gaining traction because states and districts are at the point where money has to be appropriated to pay for the standards.

"As soon as states had to start spending money on the Common Core, as soon as it became a line item in the budget, people sit up and take notice," Butcher said. "And that wasn't going to happen until now, until states started to implement it. So it's unfortunate that there is so much attention to it so late in the game but that's kind of where we are. As soon as it starts to become a money issue people will pay attention."

Calculations on the cost of implementing the standards vary, with the Pioneer Institute and two other anti-Common Core conservative think tanks estimating it will cost $16 billion over seven years. Meanwhile, the Fordham Institute, which is pro-Common Core, said the cost over a one-to-three-year transition period could range from $8.3 billion to breaking even or even saving money, depending on things like whether the states purchase hard-copy textbooks or use open-source learning material written by experts, vetted by their peers and posted for free downloading.

One issue is that new tests tied to the standards will be computerized, requiring some states and districts to make technology upgrades. The Pioneer analysis included those technology costs; the Fordham one didn't.

In backing ultimately unsuccessful anti-Common Core legislation in Missouri, Rep. Kurt Bahr, a Republican from the St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon, said he was concerned that many communities lacked the bandwidth and hardware to administer the tests.

"We don't have that connectivity," Bahr said. "It's about to become a massive pocketbook issue."

The standards are the result of an initiative sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Carrie Heath Phillips, who oversees implementation of the standards for the council, played down the concerns about cost, noting that states periodically update their standards and that spending money to implement new ones is nothing new. She also acknowledged that technology upgrades can be a real issue for states that haven't invested in it, but asked, "If you're not moving into the 21st century now in 2013, when are you going to?"

The standards have a long list of supporters, including the National Parent Teacher Association, several education associations and businesses such as the Boeing Co. and Microsoft Corp.

Literacy teacher Jessica Cuthbertson said she attempted to fully implement the new standards in her sixth-grade Aurora, Colo., classroom for the first time this year and found her students' writing was "substantially better."

"I feel that often the debate isn't about the learning," said Cuthbertson, who also trains teachers to use the new standards as part of her job with a virtual teacher leadership initiative called the Center for Teaching Quality. "We're not talking about what the kids are producing and doing with these cool standards. We're talking about the big brother federal government controlling curriculum. I don't think it's really grounded in student learning, and yet in the hands of teachers focused on student learning, I just think there is nothing but hope."

While the federal government wasn't involved in developing the standards, it has provided $350 million to two consortiums developing Common Core tests. The federal Education Department also encouraged states to adopt the standards to compete for "Race to the Top" grants and seek waivers around some of the unpopular proficiency requirements of the No Child Left Behind federal education act.

"They have done some things that have kind of muddied the waters at the very least," said Butcher of the Goldwater Institute. "It's hard for me to say, 'Well, clearly the federal government has no interest in this.'"

But in Michigan, where the Republican-led Legislature is taking steps aimed at halting the standards, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is defending them as a "really important opportunity" for the state.

"Unfortunately, it's been too much about politics," he said. "It's being viewed as the federal government putting another federal mandate on us. ... It was the governors of the states getting together ... to say we want a partner at the national level and all levels to say, 'Let's raise the bar.'"

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Associated Press writers Chris Blank in Jefferson City, Mo., John Milburn in Topeka, Kan., Alanna Durkin in Lansing, Mich., Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Tom LoBianco in Indianapolis, Phillip Rawls in Montgomery, Ala., Seanna Adcox in Columbia, S.C., Michelle Price in Salt Lake City, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., and Karen Matthews in New York contributed to this report.