The Fight Over Education in Washington
Published: July 30, 2010
Congress is unlikely to take up its school financing bill, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, until next year. But teachers unions and other forces of the status quo are already trying to subvert the measure by discrediting President Obama’s signature education initiative, the Race to the Top, which requires the states to make reforms in exchange for federal grants.
The grant program has focused the country’s attention on school reform and has angered the unions, especially by pushing the states to take student performance into account in teacher evaluations.
The attacks picked up in earnest this week, when a coalition of civil rights groups that included the National Urban League and the N.A.A.C.P. signed onto a statement that attacked not just Race to the Top, but the very idea of using competitive grants to spur reform.
President Obama came out swinging on Thursday, before the National Urban League in
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