Today, California's kindergartners are expected to be able to read aloud a story like Dr. Seuss's 'Green Eggs and Ham' before they move on to first grade. Soon they might not only have to read the children's classic, but also make a good case for whether they like or hate the rhyming tale of the stubborn Sam I Am. Teaching 5-year-olds how to prepare an argument is among a new set of K-12 standards approved unanimously by the California State Board of Education on Monday. The new Common Core standards -- developed by a national commission of teachers, administrators, education experts and parents -- are supported by the Obama administration and have been adopted so far by 33 other states and the District of Columbia. While California is thought to have among the toughest academic standards in the nation, it has had poor success in implementing them. The overall focus of the new standards is to get students to think more critically rather than memorizing facts. 'There has been a lot of dialogue as to whether these new standards are higher or lower than what we have, but the reason I am voting in favor ... is because I believe they are smarter,' said Ben Austin, a recently appointed member of the state Board of Education and the executive director of Parent Revolution, an education reform group. 'Kids will learn to dig deep ... rather than memorizing answers for a test.' Common Core actually reduces the number of standards from the state's current standards in the California Framework, but it asks students and teachers to examine them in much more depth. It aims to have all children prepared for college by the time they graduate high school. Still, the leaner list of required skills has raised some questions from educators. For example, California requires all eighth-graders to take algebra, but the new standards allow students to take the critical math class in the ninth grade. 'This is a major public policy shift that will have a severe effect on minority and other disadvantaged children,' said Bill Evers, a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and a member of the commission who helped draft the new standards. Evers argued that not having the course be an explicit requirement of all children would inevitably cut the number of minority and low-income students taking algebra early enough to graduate with college-ready math skills. But state education officials defended the new guidelines, which they said advanced the state's existing standards. 'The Common Core standards build upon the best of California's rigorous standards with the best of what other states and high-performing students offer their students,' said State Schools Chief Jack O'Connell. Monday's vote took place hours before the federal deadline for states to adopt the new standards and be given additional points in their applications for $3.4 billion in federal 'Race to the Top' grant money. California could get up to $700 million in grant money. 'Perhaps more than any other district in the state, the LAUSD stands to benefit tremendously from these federal dollars and the reforms they encourage throughout the grant process,' Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a written statement. LAUSD officials and the local teachers union said Monday that they have supported the adoption of the new standards, which were not expected to take effect for two years. Judy Elliott, LAUSD's Chief Academic Officer, said the current state standards -- which usually require a teacher to move through 30 skills per grade level -- have forced many educators to move too quickly through classroom lessons. 'We're not asking kids to argue, reflect, compare and contrast,' Elliott said. While the new standards reduce the number of basic skills that students will have to learn in each grade, they promote more critical thinking skills. The new standards will also fold literacy and math skills into subjects like science and social studies. And they require the inclusion of more real-life text -- everything from an instruction manual to a letter by Martin Luther King Jr. -- in the classroom. Use of technology is also folded into reading and writing standards as early as kindergarten. Seniors in high school will be expected to know how to produce multi-media projects like Power Point presentations. 