A backlash over national education reforms is growing in Colorado, with some school leaders rejecting what they call a federal intrusion into the classroom.

Republican U.S. Senate candidates Ken Buck and Jane Norton have called for the retooling or dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education. Rural superintendents have refused to sign on to the state’s application for a chance at $175 million in federal Race to the Top funds.

And now state school board member Peggy Littleton is mounting a campaign against the adoption of national “common-core” standards.

Littleton, who lives in Colorado Springs, will e-mail constituents, asking them to urge the rest of the board to reject the adoption of the English and math standards that may be up for a vote Aug. 2.

“It is unconstitutional for the federal government to step in and mandate and require that everybody use those standards,” she said. “. . . The obvious next step is a national curriculum. . . . When you have a progressive mind-set teaching socialism, who has control of this? What are local parents to do?”

Colorado recently adopted a new set of standards for 14 subjects, but the state also is considering adopting national, common-core standards developed by a consortium of states for what students should master in math and English.

To be competitive for federal Race to the Top funds, Washington asked states to adopt common standards, and federal officials say money will be available to help the states that adopt them.

Most developed nations have national public-education standards, and the idea is to replace the varied assortment of standards around the country to make it easier to compare test scores from state to state.

Kit Carson School District Superintendent Gerald Keefe is perhaps the state’s loudest proponent for local control and is set to go to the legislature to argue for the severing of several state and federal apron strings.

“We just think it’s more and more of a power grab by Washington. And we are determined to at least do our part, so we can look ourselves in the face to say, ‘At least we tried to do something about this’ and stand up for what’s right,” Keefe said.

The tiny Cheyenne County district with one K-12 school did not sign on to the state’s Race to the Top application, it doesn’t accept federal Title I funds for low-income students and is set to go to battle over state curriculum mandates and graduation requirements.

Keefe intends to ask state legislators next year to change Colorado laws that force schools to teach civics, dictate how sex education should be taught and set statewide graduation requirements. The next step would be a lawsuit, he said.

The district is basically fighting for local control over education issues that Keefe says is afforded under Colorado’s Constitution — Article 9, Section 15 — which says local school boards “shall have control of instruction in the public schools of their respective districts.”

“We have given a lot of ground over the years to the state and Washington,” he said. “This discussion only happens because Colorado is supposedly a local-control state. It is really not. It is in name only because we have given away a lot of our rights.”

The most recent course mandated to be taught by all schools is civics. Also, state law requires schools that offer sex education to emphasize abstinence as the best birth control but also include information about contraception.

“(The state) doesn’t have the authority to control the curriculum like that,” Keefe said. “If my community wants to teach sex-ed, and it’s a very conservative community, and it says ‘abstinence only,’ then that is the community’s values and mores.”

The top issue Keefe intends to fight is over statewide graduation requirements being developed under 2008’s Senate Bill 212, or “the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids,” also known as Cap4K.

“We think each school district should be able to set their own graduation requirements,” Keefe said.

Keefe’s lament is gaining favor, said Jane Urschel, deputy director of the Colorado Association of School Boards.

“I do think local control is slipping away,” Urschel said. “But there is a context in which you have to consider. The state provides 60 percent of district funding. A lot of people think that he who has the gold makes the rules.”

Kit Carson made news in 2005 when it refused to follow the No Child Left Behind program. In doing so, it gave up about $25,000 in federal Title I funds.

It meant the federal government couldn’t impose sanctions over the district for performance, he said.

Voters agreed to a tax increase to make up for the federal aid it lost. The community will vote again on the tax in November.

Kit Carson students still take the standardized tests — with 52 percent proficient at math and 77 percent proficient in reading in 2009. The school of 100 students had no dropouts, with all eight high school students graduating last year.

The district receives federal money for special education and also gets other forms of federal assistance, Keefe said.

Van Schoales, director of the Education Reform Now advocacy group, has publicly debated Keefe before. He said districts should have a right to deny federal intrusion, to a point.

“As long as all of the kids are performing at a high level and we know that, who cares?” he said. “But they shouldn’t be able to opt out of state and national measures for quality if they want public-education funding. If they want to create their own private school district, fine.”