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

Obama Defends Education Program

By JACKIE CALMES
President Obama spoke at the 100th anniversary convention of the National Urban League in Washington on Thursday.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Obama spoke at the 100th anniversary convention of the National Urban League in Washington on Thursday.
President Obama on Thursday sought to deflect criticisms from some minority and teachers groups.
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Jesse Nagelberg, 16, right, one of the culinary-minded participants in the Passport NYC camp at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, helps prepare a pot of baba ghanouj in a synagogue kitchen.

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David Alexander

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Mr. Alexander, a former president of Pomona College who changed the face of that campus and its student body, also pressed the Rhodes Trust to grant scholarships to women.