Missouri Education Watchdog: Pioneer Institute Asks "Is the US Department of Education Violating Federal Law by Directing Standards, Tests, and Curricula?"

Missouri Education Watchdog: Pioneer Institute Asks "Is the US Department of Education Violating Federal Law by Directing Standards, Tests, and Curricula?":

Pioneer Institute Asks "Is the US Department of Education Violating Federal Law by Directing Standards, Tests, and Curricula?"

by stlgretchen

Is the Federal Government breaking the law with Race to the Top? Various organizations have come to the conclusion that it indeed is acting unconstitutionally.

Reprinted with permission from The Pioneer Institute:

Contact Jamie Gass, 617-723-2277, ext. 210 or jgass@pioneerinstitute.org

IS THE US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION VIOLATING FEDERAL LAW BY DIRECTING STANDARDS, TESTS, AND CURRICULA?

Analysis conducted by former general counsel and former deputy general counsel of

U.S. Department of Education

BOSTON, MA —Despite three federal laws that prohibit federal departments or agencies from directing, supervising or controlling elementary and secondary school curricula, programs of instruction and instructional materials, the U.S. Department of Education (“Department”) has placed the nation on the road to a national curriculum, according to a new report written by a former general counsel and former deputy general counsel of the United States Department of Education.

The Road to a National Curriculum: The Legal Aspects of the Common Core Standards, Race to the Top, and Conditional Waivers is sponsored by Pioneer Institute, the Federalist Society, the American Principles Project, and the Pacific Research Institute of California.

With only minor exceptions, the General Education Provisions Act, the Department of Education Organization Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), ban the Department from directing, supervising, or controlling elementary and secondary school curriculum, programs of instruction, and instructional materials.

“The Department has designed a system of discretionary grants and conditional waivers that effectively herds states into accepting specific standards and assessments favored by the Department,” said Robert S. Eitel, who co-authored the report with Kent D. Talbert.

The authors find that the Obama administration has used the Race to the Top Fund and the Race to the Top Assessment Program to push states to adopt standards and assessments that are substantially the same across nearly all states. “By leveraging funds through its Race to the Top Fund and the Race to the Top