Parents and Citizens Are Key to Eradicating Federal Overreach Into Education
The Lyndon B. Johnson Building, HQ of the U.S. Dept. of Education, 2006
Photo credit: Cool Ceasar (Wikimedia Commons)(CC-By-SA 3.0)
Photo credit: Cool Ceasar (Wikimedia Commons)(CC-By-SA 3.0)
Common Core has infiltrated all fifty states even though several governors initially rejected those federally promoted standards. Numerous governors who regret funding and supporting Common Core have promised to repeal the federally aligned standards. Time has shown that those governors have simply renamed the standards. Therefore, the solution to the problem rests with the citizens of each state.
State governors and legislators can refuse to fund any aspect of federal programs imposed upon their state. They can demand that the U.S. Department of Education be required to bring all policy issues to Congress before imposing them on the states, and they can demand that federal level legislators protect state autonomy in education. Governors and legislators have unfortunately bowed to federal pressure concerning Common Core. Citizens are in the best position to protect their children. Only citizens can prevent Common Core from being implemented in their local schools.
Texans rejected Common Core originally, yet Women on the Wall held a National Conference on Education in Austin, Texas, to address processes for eliminating Common Core from their schools. These federally aligned standards were introduced at the district level and wear a variety of new names including CSCOPE. Even though the governor rejected Common Core and refused to fund the program, their schools are infected with federally aligned standards and testing.
Many legislators from both parties have tried to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, the source of most major initiatives which fail our children and undermine the quality of our educational system.
Fairness requires us to recognize the fact that legislators would dissolve the DoED if their constituents supported the effort. If the Common Core Standards and all future federal educational policies are to be stopped, citizens must provide financial and personal support to all legislators willing to neuter the DoED.
The process could begin by removing cabinet status from DoED and by requiring it to return to its original mission: accumulating statistics and being a source of information to the states. No longer should the DoED be allowed to write policy and impose that policy on the states.
Legislators could demand that the federal government no longer be allowed to tax citizens forfederal educational policymaking. The millions of tax dollars removed from the states to implement discretionary and mandatory spending on DoED policies should be returned to the states andParents and Citizens Are Key to Eradicating Federal Overreach Into Education | Truth in American Education: