Higher-education groups praised a set of a national standards for elementary and secondary education that governors and state education officials announced on Wednesday, saying the guidelines would help improve college preparedness and accessibility.

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers collaborated with educators, researchers, and other experts to write the Common Core State Standards, which outline specific expectations for what students should learn across all subjects in kindergarten through fifth grade.

The groups also specified what students in sixth through 12th grade should learn in mathematics and English, as well as levels of literacy in history, science, and technical subjects.

The standards call for increasingly complex and diverse readings and a focus on logic, research, and narrative writing. They also call for a mix of skills learning and conceptual understanding in math....