Duncan Flunks the “State led” Test with His Indiana NCLB Waiver Warning
Corporate reformers love tests.
It seems that now, the test is on them.
Is the federal government usurping state authority over public education?
Consider the protestations that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are not a federal mandate, as noted on the corestandards.org website:
Fact: The Common Core is a state‐led effort that is not part of No Child Left Behind or any other federal initiative. … State adoption of the standards is in no way mandatory. …This work is being driven by the needs of the states, not the federal government. [Emphasis added.]
Based on the above, it would seem that a state deciding to forego CCSS would face no federal sanctions associated with the never-reauthorized No Child Left Behind (NCLB), that the two concepts– CCSS and NCLB– would not even be related in any federal funding discussion, much less a punitive mandate that any state “prove” to the federal government that its “state-led” education standards must be CCSS, “or else.”
Though he spent a lot of time and energy on defending the “state-led” CCSS, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan changed his story when questioned aboutfederal funding tied to CCSS:
In a hearing before a House appropriations subcommittee Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan defended the competitive grants built into his fiscal 2015 budget request, gave no substantive details about a proposed Race to the Top for equity contest, and continued to distance himself from the Common Core State Standards.
“I’m just a big proponent of high standards. Whether they’re common or not is Duncan Flunks the “State led” Test with His Indiana NCLB Waiver Warning | deutsch29: