First ObamaCare, now ObamaEd
President Obama has extended federal control over health care and is now trying to centralize education policy by imposing Washington’s dictates on states and local jurisdictions. Though aimed at improvement, the president’s agenda will weaken strong state standards, set in motion a domino effect of education nationalization, and marginalize ordinary Americans.
Obama-ed started with the president’s $4 billion Race to the Top (RTTT) competitive funding program, which required states to commit to adopt common, i.e. national, standards in core subjects. Next, Mr. Obama informed the nation’s governors that, if he has his way, states would have to adopt national standards to receive federal Title I funds for disadvantaged students.
Finally, in the president’s recently released “blueprint” for education reform, a new national target of getting all students “college and career ready” by 2020 would be based, in one likely favored option, on national college-and-career-readiness standards.
The president’s national approach, however, spawns an array of problems.
First, despite claims about their rigor, the draft national standards crafted by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, which are supported by the Obama administration, aren’t as challenging as the top standards in California, Massachusetts and a number of other states.
A new joint study by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute (PI) and the San Francisco/Sacramento-based Pacific Research Institute (PRI) reveals serious shortcomings in the standards. According to the study, authored by Stanford University mathematician James Milgram and University of Arkansas education
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/12/first-obamacare-now-obamaed/#ixzz0kt47c6xv