Is the Administration Using ESEA to Increase the Federal Role?
One of the rallying cries of those of us who oppose common core standards has been the fact that the federal government involvement in them has violated three separate federal laws (GEPA, ESEA, NCLB). If we are to be a nation of laws, not of men, then we should do everything possible to ensure that those laws are followed. However, if the law prohibits you from doing what you really want to do, then the proper course of action is to get the law changed, making what you want to do legal. The current administration may be slowly coming around to that realization. The President’slatest budget proposal seeks to attaching funding to its illegal goals of having national standards and assessments.
According to Niel McClusky of the CATO Institute, “President Obama proposes changing Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – of which NCLB is just the most recent re-authorization – to a program called “College- and Career-Ready Students,” with an annual appropriation of over $14 billion.”
The Administration, in their 2010 proposal for the revision of NCLB “A Blueprint For Reform”, outlined all the areas where regulation through the USDoEd will need to change to allow the federal government more say in the things the law currently forbids them to act upon: national standards, personnel (teachers), national testing.
Our congressmen and women need to be hyper aware of the administration’s aspirations. To the administration’s credit, they have been fairly transparent. Secretary Duncan announced at a Is the Administration Using ESEA to Increase the Federal Role? | Missouri Education Watchdog: